Any particular reason for the red-bating? Are you still concerned that the CPUSA might try to take over the country?

No, I am not concerned about that at all. Polls indicate only 9% of Americans believe in evolution and most of them are effete cowards who couldn't take over a wet paper bag. There is no chance of a communist takeover in this country. In America, communists are an endangered species that exist only in zoos like Harvard and Berkely. America's Christian taxpayers care for you like any good zookeeper; we just don't want you animals to determine what our children learn in our schools. Che Guevera, Lenin?--Chomsky, Gould, etc., much less their pathetic disciples who run this message board don't even come close.

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And surely you're not going to claim that the Soviet Union was a haven for evolutionists...

Darwinism is the intellectual precursor to Marxism. Without it Marxism could not exist. It is an uncitical devotion to the works of Darwin that caused Lysenkoism to be adopted. Lysenkoism is just applied Darwinism. It was the Christian monk Gregor Mendel, not the atheistic philosopher Darwin who really discovered genetics, and this is what Lysenko objected to. Yes, evolutionists had free reign in the Soviet Union, while true scientists were sent to the Gulag.

I believe he's getting it from a Gallup poll from 1991. Cited on a site which apparently is trying to foster religious tolereance... it's also the very first link that comes up when you google "polls evolution"... pretty lazy.

Here is the linkI was in slight error. The 9% poll was for 1987. Darwininsts seem to have gained a little ground. As of 1997, 10% of Americans believe in evolutionism! It might even be as high as 11% by now! Wow, the revolution must coming soon!!

No, "we" don't. The Communist Manifesto is just a bunch of left-wing ranting. It reads like a joint pamphlet of Noam Chomsky and Martha Nussbaum. It has no substance. Karl and Fred's great work, Das Kapital, contains the theoetical foundation for their ideas, grounded thoroughly in Darwinism. It was Darwinism that animated the corspe that was socialist ideology prior to the 1860's

Karl and Fred's great work, Das Kapital, contains the theoetical foundation for their ideas, grounded thoroughly in Darwinism. It was Darwinism that animated the corspe that was socialist ideology prior to the 1860's

Nice try, Bill. Capitalism is based on Darwinism, not Communism. "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs." Yep, that's clearly derived right from the "Survival of the Fittest."

Do you honestly think Lysenko was based on Darwinism? I'm pretty sure Darwin didn't believe in the heritability of acquired characteristics, which is central to Lysenkoism.

--------------2006 MVD award for most dogged defense of scientific sanity

"Atheism is a religion the same way NOT collecting stamps is a hobby." —Scott Adams

One other thing. When Christians invoke Darwinism, we are discussing something broader than Charles D's scribblings. The roots of Darwinism are found in Milesian philosophy, and reached their apex in Malthus and, ironically enough, Erasmus Darwin. Chuck himself was rather dimwitted, and obviously let someone rifle Grandpa's manuscripts while watching Huxley take the pratfalls in public. I often wonder what Chuck thought when he stared, slack-jawed, at the pages of his own "work". You guys should be ashamed of yourselves for exploiting an obvious imbecile to advance your satan-breathed ideology. And Marx should be ashamed for trashing and then plagiarizing Malthus. But I guess the ends justify the means, no?

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Do you honestly think Lysenko was based on Darwinism? I'm pretty sure Darwin didn't believe in the heritability of acquired characteristics, which is central to Lysenkoism.

As I've just stated, Darwin petit-fils had enough trouble dressing himself each morning to corcern himself with such, but his books do rely on lamarckian inheritance as a supplement to natural selection.

Well, at least 67% think that it is possible to believe in both God and evolution, which is encouraging.

And don't forget we are talking about the USA here, which is unusual amongst the developed nations in that a very high percentage of the population claim that religion is very important in their lives. Europe, for example, is much more secular. The States is closer to a developing country in this specific regard.

--------------If I fly the coop some timeAnd take nothing but a gripWith the few good books that really countIt's a necessary trip

I'll be gone with the girl in the gold silk jacketThe girl with the pearl-driller's hands

And don't forget we are talking about the USA here, which is unusual amongst the developed nations in that a very high percentage of the population claim that religion is very important in their lives. Europe, for example, is much more secular. The States is closer to a developing country in this specific regard.

What's funny about this is that Americans are also happier than Europeans in general - if anyone asks for the source, I'll dig it up under the condition that the skeptic subsequently concedes that high levels of religious belief and personal contentment might be causally linked.

Lottery winners are special cases, Paley, and you're right: large windfalls don't result in permanent happiness. It's usually just temporary. But, on the other hand, Americans overall have a high level of contentedness. It is difficult to discover the source of that happiness. Sure, you say that we're more religous, it must be due to that. This guy and his study show that happiness is not the whole of the equation.

I'm actually curious what you have to say about his data. I'm sure you have our own explanation as to why the more religious country (ours) has more murders, abortion, and STDs than the more secular countries in Europe. I'm going to guess that you are going to dismiss it outright.

This guy and his study show that happiness is not the whole of the equation.

I'm actually curious what you have to say about his data. I'm sure you have our own explanation as to why the more religious country (ours) has more murders, abortion, and STDs than the more secular countries in Europe. I'm going to guess that you are going to dismiss it outright.

How can I dismiss data that I can't see? The blurb doesn't link to the study, so the reader is left in the dark (perhaps deliberately?) when it comes to the author's methodology, sample size, etc. Lines such as this:

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“Many Americans agree that their churchgoing nation is an exceptional, God-blessed, shining city on the hill that stands as an impressive example for an increasingly sceptical world"

don't exactly inspire confidence in the author's objectivity. Is the study online, and if not, would you mind giving a brief summary? Trust me, I won't run away.

To give you additional guidance, here are some questions I ask of any cross-national survey: 1) Did the study make demographic adjustments at any point? (Are white, middle-class Americans compared with white, middle-class Europeans? Or at least did they compare similar races? If not, the study is a joke.) 2) Were adjustments made for the varying percentages of 15-35 (or similar-aged) men in the respective populations? If not, the study is propaganda. 3) Are there any other considerations (population density, gun laws, etc.)? If not, the study is compromised.

Remember, Mr. Cogzoid, academics really, really loathe white, heterosexual Christian men, and this influences their work. I'm not whining, just stating a fact. But I'll respond to your study if you fill in some details.

I don't think this is true at all. In fact, most academics ARE white, heterosexual Christian men. You might as well make another baseless claim like "Jesus ate babies!" I think you are confusing race caused crime with socio-economic caused crime. Are blacks more likely to commit crimes, or are poor people more likely to commit crimes? What about middle class blacks, do they commit crimes? What about poor whites? Do you have any numbers to suggest that race is the bigger factor than the size of their paycheck?

Crime, abortion, and other social ills are a product of the society, and we are all apart of that society, even the white, heterosexual, Christian men. Our nation's religion doesn't seem to be doing much to thwart the tide of those social ills. It's an empty statement to say that religion helps our nation in any way. Show me the numbers, man. I showed you the numbers that suggest that a lack of religion doesn't hurt social ills. Just look at the liberal Dutch. They even teach evolution in schools there!

Are blacks more likely to commit crimes, or are poor people more likely to commit crimes?

Homicide Offender Rate/100,000 by Race in US (2000):

3.4 - White25.8 - Black3.2 - Other Note: this doesn't take into account the reasons behind the discrepancy. But notice this bit:

Thus if you remove homicides committed by blacks (total: 21862, Blacks:9316), and assume a proportionality between number of offenders and number of offenses, you can extrapolate US homicide offender rate of only 2.6/100,000, lower than Germany (3.27) and France (3.91).

This demonstates my earlier point about the need for caution when comparing America with more ethnically homogeneous countries. This point also applies to other social ills. Think about this: if Christianity is so useless in creating a stable society, then why did America's exploding crime rates coincide with the secularization of the public sphere in the mid-sixties? And why did crime rates start falling after Reagan assumed office and Christians resumed a more active role in public life? And morality is indeed tied to crime: check out Giuliani's application of the "Broken Windows" theory to New York City. Get rid of the hookers and grifters, and watch the murder rate drop. Liberals predicted the utter failure of this approach, which of course demonstrated its usefulness to any rational mind. Its subsequent success was practically guaranteed. Wait, it gets worse: the FBI (coincidentally, I am sure) includes Hispanic criminals under the "White Offenders" hate crimes category, even though Hispanic victims get their own box. This, of course, artificially inflates the crime rates of European-Americans. Now, who doesn't have it in for us?

Think about this: if Christianity is so useless in creating a stable society, then why did America's exploding crime rates coincide with the secularization of the public sphere in the mid-sixties? And why did crime rates start falling after Reagan assumed office and Christians resumed a more active role in public life?

If you check the statistics, it is because Roe vs Wade made abortion available. The subsequent reduction in teenagers caused the reduction in crime rate.

Quite fascinating stuff, statistics.

--------------If I fly the coop some timeAnd take nothing but a gripWith the few good books that really countIt's a necessary trip

I'll be gone with the girl in the gold silk jacketThe girl with the pearl-driller's hands

The problem here became clear to me while reading your post.Quote Remember, Mr. Cogzoid, academics really, really loathe white, heterosexual Christian men, and this influences their work. I don't think this is true at all. In fact, most academics ARE white, heterosexual Christian men. You might as well make another baseless claim like "Jesus ate babies!"

Undoubtedly academics are mostly white, straight, and Christian (although do you have a source for the latter? I suspect the rates of atheism among professors, if uncovered, would raise Middle America's roof!) But how is this inconsistent with my contention? Self-hatred and "enlightenment" values go hand-in-hand, after all. Well, that's all for now. Later, I'll hand out a fun homework assignment and answer any follow-up questions..........

I trust nationmaster.com a little more, as they are not trying to make a social point about anything, just supplying data.

I agree that blacks are disproportionally responsible for crime in America. However, they are also disproportionally poor. I'm not convinced that being black makes you a criminal. I am convinced that being poor increases your chances of a life of crime. And that being black increases your chances of being poor. The question is, if whites were more likely to be poor, would whites be disproportionally responsible for crime. I would say yes. But our society hasn't run that experiment, yet.

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Thus if you remove homicides committed by blacks (total: 21862, Blacks:9316), and assume a proportionality between number of offenders and number of offenses, you can extrapolate US homicide offender rate of only 2.6/100,000, lower than Germany (3.27) and France (3.91).

Your logic is flawed. For in removing black crimes you are also removing poor crimes in America, while not removing poor crimes from the other countries (which they certainly have). This flawed logic of yours seems to be a theme.

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Think about this: if Christianity is so useless in creating a stable society, then why did America's exploding crime rates coincide with the secularization of the public sphere in the mid-sixties?

When the baby boomers reached their late teens crime increased. That's when people do crime. No suprise there. The coinciding was a coincidence.

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And why did crime rates start falling after Reagan assumed office and Christians resumed a more active role in public life?

Because that happens to be about 20 years after Roe v. Wade. Unwanted children are more likely to become criminals. And since more unwanted children were aborted after Roe v. Wade there were less criminals 17-20 years afterward. Simple math. And it relies nothing on Reagan.

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And morality is indeed tied to crime: check out Giuliani's application of the "Broken Windows" theory to New York City. Get rid of the hookers and grifters, and watch the murder rate drop. Liberals predicted the utter failure of this approach, which of course demonstrated its usefulness to any rational mind. Its subsequent success was practically guaranteed.

But crime plummeted in cities that DIDN'T apply Giuliani's theory. All across our nation. There is no consistent correlation between crime fighting methods and less crime. You are confused with correlation and causation. Giuliani may have been in charge when crime fell, but that doesn't mean he was the cause.

Try here if you want some background. Please sample Figures 6 and 7 while you're browsing.

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I agree that blacks are disproportionally responsible for crime in America. However, they are also disproportionally poor. I'm not convinced that being black makes you a criminal. I am convinced that being poor increases your chances of a life of crime.

My purpose is not to bash black people, nor suggest that they are genetically predisposed to crime. I'm just saying we should control for as many variables as possible. If you want to adjust for SES, then do so. But let's compare similar groups, like, ohhhhhh....middle-class white people, for example. I'm afraid you won't like the results, however.

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Quote And why did crime rates start falling after Reagan assumed office and Christians resumed a more active role in public life? Because that happens to be about 20 years after Roe v. Wade. Unwanted children are more likely to become criminals. And since more unwanted children were aborted after Roe v. Wade there were less criminals 17-20 years afterward. Simple math. And it relies nothing on Reagan.

My cipherin' suggests a period of 8 years. But then, I never did get the New Math.

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When the baby boomers reached their late teens crime increased. That's when people do crime. No suprise there. The coinciding was a coincidence.

The Woodstock generation turning to debauchery I can believe. But if you read criminology books from the time period, the overriding concern was the nature of the crime committed, not merely its frequency. The utter viciousness and callousness of the young thugs shocked many seasoned professionals. All except evolutionists, of course. But they're hardly professional, so never mind.

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But crime plummeted in cities that DIDN'T apply Giuliani's theory. All across our nation.

Not really. I don't have a source handy, but much of the decline was attributable to a handful of big cities such as New York and Boston. You know, the cities that started patrolling their red-light districts. But what am I telling you guys for, ya'll are probably still sporting the bruises....

And why do these numbers disagree as well? Can you explain the discrepency? I didn't read all of that, as I don't have the time, nor do I really care all that much. But if you want more, seemingly different data, check out figure 2b on this.

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But let's compare similar groups, like, ohhhhhh....middle-class white people, for example. I'm afraid you won't like the results, however.

Numbers?

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My cipherin' suggests a period of 8 years. But then, I never did get the New Math.

And why do these numbers disagree as well? Can you explain the discrepency? I didn't read all of that, as I don't have the time, nor do I really care all that much. But if you want more, seemingly different data, check out figure 2b on this.

Hey, I'm not the one who mistook a newsblurb for a scientific survey, and then switched to a different set of figures when pressed for more detail. But if you could ever trouble your bad self to click on the blue line, you'll see that the charts are derived from data compiled by the International Crime Victim Survey, which is...oh, who am I kidding. As if you'll ever look. Here:

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The International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS) is the most farreaching programme of standardised sample surveys to look a householders’ experience with crime, policing, crime prevention and feelings of unsafety in a large number of countries. This page summarises the development of the ICVS.

There were two main reasons for setting up this project. The first was the inadequacy of offences recorded by the police for comparing crime in different countries. The second was the absence of any alternative standardised measure.

Police figures are problematic for comparative purposes because the vast majority of incidents the police know about are notified by victims, and any differences in propensity to report in different countries will undermine the comparability of the amount of crime counted by the police. Moreover, official police figures vary because of differences in legal definitions, recording practices, and precise rules for classifying and counting incidents. These limitations are well-established. A number of countries have independently mounted crime or ‘victimisation’ surveys to asses national crime problems- and the ICVS mirrors their approach. Such surveys ask representative samples of the population about selected offences they have experienced over a given time. They are interested in incidents are whether or not reported to the police, and indeed, the reasons why people do and do not choose to notify the police. They thus provide both a more realistic count of how many people are affected by crime and - if the surveys are repeated- a measure of trends in crime, unaffected by changes in victims’ reporting behaviour or administrative changes in recording crime.

As for the methodology:

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CATI method

The technical management of all (but Finland and Malta) of the surveys in the industrialised countries has been carried out by Interview, a Dutch surveying company. Interview subcontracted fieldwork to survey companies in the participating countries, while maintaining responsibility for the questionnaire, sample selection and inteview procedures. The survey on Malta was done according to the Face to Face method, supervised by UNICRI.

sampling: a sample of between 1000 and 2000 households was drawn by random dialing of telephone numbers. Non relavant contacts (like companies) were ignored. Within a household, there was a random selection of a household member aged over 16. In case of a refusal, this household member was not replaced. The process continues until the agreed amount of completed interviews were reached. An exeption to this procedure is Finland, a random selection of individual were drawn from the population register. Also an exeption was Northern Ireland and some rural parts of Spain, since telephone penatration was low the interviews were taken face to face, but also computer assisted.

response rates: in the eleven industrialised countries in the 1996 sweep taken as a whole, 67% of the respondents selected for interview agreed to take part. this was an improvement on the overall response rate of 60% for the twelve countries of the 1992 sweep and on the 43% response rate in 1989. In 1996, response varied from 40% in the USA to 80% or more in Austria, Finland and Northern Ireland. For the seven countries which took part both in 1992 and 1996, the response rate was about the same or better in five, but fell slightly in two (the Netherlands and USA). For the three countries which had surveys in 1996 and 1989, responses were lower in Switzerland but higher in the other two.

CATI: the interviews were done by telephone. The interviewer reads the questions (and instructions) from a computer screen. The answers are directly entered into the computer system and used to select the next question. (For instance, the items on car crimes were skipped if the household has no cars.)

There's much more, of course, but this will get you started. Of course, I can't read it out loud to you.

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Clearly math is not your strong point at all. Crime rates fell in 94. Roe Vs. Wade was decided in 73. That makes 21 years.

Why, it certainly does. But the time from Roe v. Wade to the Reagan presidency was only 8 years, just as I wrote, apparently to no avail. And that's when crime started falling. I must admit, however, that it did start rising again in the mid-eighties, so there wasn't as much net change during the Big R's tenure as I thought. And I am aware that crime continued to jump until the Republican Revolution in 1994. When, of course, crime immediately began to plummet despite dire liberal forecasts of the crime wave sure to follow in the wake of welfare reform. By the way, whatever your reader charges, it's way too much.

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But crime plummeted in cities that DIDN'T apply Giuliani's theory. All across our nation. There is no consistent correlation between crime fighting methods and less crime.

Sorry, but there was something special about the crime drop in the Big Apple, no matter how badly you may want to wish it away.* I bet you wept in frustration as Giuliani exposed the city's gangsta-hugging tactics for the crap they were, and are. So typical: conservatives have to change the tire in the thunderstorm while the libs watch from the safety of the local Starbuck's. And bitch about how warm their frappuccino's getting.

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I don't have a source handy, but much of the decline was attributable to a handful of big cities such as New York and Boston. Simply false.

Another facet of the recent decline is that until lately it has been driven primarily by the largest U.S. cities. In 1995, 40 percent of the national drop in homicide could be accounted for by just six cities. Given its large share of the national population, and its relatively high homicide rate in 1993, New York City’s 67 percent reduction in homicide from 1993 to 1998 itself accounts for 17 percent of the national decline during this period. But New York’s experience has not been unique; over the same period, the number of homicides has dropped in San Diego by 68 percent, in Boston by 65 percent, in Los Angeles by 60 percent, in San Antonio by 60 percent, in Houston by 43 percent, in New Orleans by 42 percent, in Detroit by 26 percent, in Philadelphia by 23 percent, in Dallas by 21 percent, and in Chicago by 18 percent. Together with New York, these cities account for 8 percent of the national population, but 59 percent of the decline in homicides. For 1999, statistics from the FBI’s preliminary Uniform Crime Report indicate that the largest drops are now occurring in smaller cities, such as Nashville, Tennessee, at 50 percent, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, at 41 percent, as the largest urban areas have now bottomed out.

While you're at it, fire your fact-checker as well.

*Here's a homework exercise for Constant Lurker: name the sources the author uses to validate the official numbers, and compare with Paley's sources. Discuss any similarities you see.

Hey, I'm not the one who mistook a newsblurb for a scientific survey, and then switched to a different set of figures when pressed for more detail.

I never mistook any newsblurb for a scientific survey. I merely did some Google searches for data on the subject at hand. I didn't find your data, I found other data. And multiple sources of data so you couldn't claim that I was cooking the numbers. I'm still not convinced that the vicitmization methodology is superior to raw numbers. I see flaws in both systems of data gathering. I really don't care enough to get into a debate on which one is better. However, I'm glad that you were able to explain the discrepency between the data per my asking.

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But the time from Roe v. Wade to the Reagan presidency was only 8 years, just as I wrote, apparently to no avail. And that's when crime started falling.

Naturally you point to a few years of less crime in the '80s and ignore the 20% drop in crime in the '90s. Your link shows such a drop. I'm not talking about the year to year fluctuations here. I'm talking about the plummeting trend that happens to be 20 years after Roe vs. Wade.

You seem to not understand the difference between people trying to take credit for change, and people being responible for that change. I couldn't care less that you find papers where people claim to have made the world better. Correlation and Causation aren't the same. If I cared more and had the time, I'd bother to find published arguments that claim that Guiliani is not responsible for the majority of the crime drop in NY. I'll give credit where credit is due though, and say that a good portion of the drop IN NY was to his policies.

I'd like to point out that yes, the murder rate fell mostly in the major US cities. But that is hardly suprising. That is where the poor and violent live. And when the inner-city poor have access to abortions there will be less unwanted children to commit crime in the future. Simple logic.

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But New York’s experience has not been unique; over the same period, the number of homicides has dropped in San Diego by 68 percent, in Boston by 65 percent, in Los Angeles by 60 percent, in San Antonio by 60 percent, in Houston by 43 percent, in New Orleans by 42 percent, in Detroit by 26 percent, in Philadelphia by 23 percent, in Dallas by 21 percent, and in Chicago by 18 percent.

Wow, Guiliani was good! His policies helped the entire nation, that or the Republican factions in Los Angeles, San Diego and Boston finally took charge. Thank goodness. What you are left to show is that the synchronous crime drops in each of these cities was due to independant policy changes. (Certainly it wasn't due to a pan-American policy change such as *gasp* abortion!)

Yes, I can be an ass sometimes. All part of the show, I guess, even for sincere folk like me. But I do appreciate your arguments, and you gave me a few things to think about. Obviously, I still maintain my position has more evidence behind it, but there's no doubt that America doesn't abide by its ideals very often, and that's a shame. Thanks for being so reasonable.

I agree that blacks are disproportionally responsible for crime in America. However, they are also disproportionally poor. I'm not convinced that being black makes you a criminal. I am convinced that being poor increases your chances of a life of crime. And that being black increases your chances of being poor. The question is, if whites were more likely to be poor, would whites be disproportionally responsible for crime. I would say yes. But our society hasn't run that experiment, yet.

One more thing. I think your assumption that racial crime disparities are merely a function of social inequalities can be questioned. The Color of Crime, a study done white nationalists Ian Jobling and Jared Taylor, but based exclusively on federal crime data and surveys, suggests that this may not be the case. Apparently, this study was reviewed by several criminologists who endorsed the paper's math, if not conclusions. Some of its provocative findings:

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“… between 2001 and 2003, blacks were 39 times more likely to commit violent crimes against whites than the reverse, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.”

Between 2001 and 2003, blacks committed, on average, 15,400 black-on-white rapes per year, while whites averaged only 900 white-on-black rapes per year.

“Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.” Nationally, youth gangs are 90 percent non-white. “Hispanics are 19 times more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs. Blacks are 15 times more likely, and Asians are nine times more likely.”

The only crime category in which Asians are more heavily represented than whites is illegal gambling.

“Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black.” Far from being guilty of “racially profiling” innocent blacks, police have been exercising racial bias on behalf of blacks, arresting fewer blacks than their proportion of criminals: “… blacks who committed crimes that were reported to the police were 26 percent less likely to be arrested than people of other races who committed the same crimes.”

“… police are determined to arrest non-black rather than black criminals.” (I have seen this practice in operation on the streets and subways of New York.)

“[Blacks] are eight times more likely than people of other races to rob someone, for example, and 5.5 times more likely to steal a car.” Charges of racial profiling, which maintain that police target innocent black motorists for traffic stops notwithstanding, a 2002 study by Maryland’s Public Service Research Institute found that police were stopping too few black speeders (23%), compared to their proportion of actual speeders (25%). In fact, “blacks were twice as likely to speed as whites” in general, and there was an even higher frequency of black speeders in the 90-mph and higher range.

“… the only evidence for police bias is disproportionate arrest rates for those groups police critics say are the targets of bias. High black arrest rates appear to reflect high crime rates, not police misconduct.”

Blacks not only commit violent crimes at far higher rates than non-blacks, but their crimes are more violent than those of whites. Blacks are three times as likely as non-blacks to commit assault with guns, and twice as likely as non-blacks to commit assault with knives.

Blacks not only commit violent crimes at far higher rates than whites, but blacks commit “white collar” offenses -- fraud, bribery, racketeering and embezzlement, respectively -- at two to five times the white rate.

The single greatest indicator of an area’s crime rate is not poverty or education, but race and ethnicity. Even when one controls for income, the black crime rate is much higher than the white rate.

Pretty wild, I know. Does anybody here have an informed opinion? This could very well be a crackpot study, but it seems worthy of commentary. And it is based on government data.

The other issue is that the vast majority of "Black" people are not incarcerated for violent crimes. They are in prison mostly because of drug crime. The numbers at the government site for Health and Human services (http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/nhsda.htm) show that while 13 percent of drug users are "Black", they make up 38% of those arrested for drug use and 59% of those convicted of drug use.

There has been a lot of data generated recently that suggests that for a variety of reasons an African American is more likely than a white person to be charged with a crime, and even more likely to be convicted. There are some serious studies that suggest this bias is a major contributing factor to the apparently higher rate of black crime than white crime. Reasons include the poverty level - lack of access to good lawyers both before and during a trial.

Statistics on black crime are, on the surface, very bleak. There are, however, some very important factors that help to influence the numbers. Consider those and a strong case for a much different view unfolds. Since 62% of persons admitted to Federal prison and 31.1% of those admitted to State prison for the first time were sentenced because of drug offenses, let us first take a look at the racial disparity in the war on drugs:

The National Institute of Drug Abuse estimated that while 12 percent of drug users are black, they make up nearly 50 percent of all drug possession arrests in the U.S. (The Black and White of Justice, Freedom Magazine, Volume 128) According to the National Drug Strategy Network, although African Americans make up less than one-third of the population in Georgia, the black arrest rate for drugs is five times greater than the white arrest rate. In addition, since 1990, African Americans have accounted for more than 75% of persons incarcerated for drug offenses in Georgia and make up 97.7% of the people in that state who are given life sentences for drug offenses.

In six California counties independently surveyed in 1995, 100% of those individuals sent to trial on drug charges were minorities, while the drug-using population in those same counties was more than 60% white. (The Black and White of Justice, Freedom Magazine, Volume 128) A CNN article in 1996 sited U.S. government figures that show more than 90 percent of all federal prosecutions for crack cocaine in 1995 were of African American defendants. In addition, unlike convictions for powered cocaine and other drugs (which wealthy, Caucasian defendants are more likely to use), a conviction for selling crack cocaine can carry a lengthy prison term without benefit of parole.

--------------If I fly the coop some timeAnd take nothing but a gripWith the few good books that really countIt's a necessary trip

I'll be gone with the girl in the gold silk jacketThe girl with the pearl-driller's hands

It must also be noted that while Color o' Crime focuses on blacks, it doesn't let whites off the hook. If I'm not mistaken, they go to great pains to emphasize the relatively high crime rate of whites relative to North East Asians.

At first, I thought the victimization methodology would be a valid way to determine crime statistics. But then I realized what's going on in those studies. You're asking these liberal people in foreign countries if they feel victimized. Surely, you can see the tendency for error that will result. But, I thought, what's a better way to do it? Small crimes have a tendency to not be reported or over sensationalized. But, murders don't. Our police force is pretty good about counting bodies and no one can claim that they "felt murdered" in a survey.

If we're going to look at one statistic to determine crime, it might as well be murder.

Thanks for the links, Mr. MidnightVoice. The first link is broken, however.

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The National Institute of Drug Abuse estimated that while 12 percent of drug users are black, they make up nearly 50 percent of all drug possession arrests in the U.S. (The Black and White of Justice, Freedom Magazine, Volume 128) According to the National Drug Strategy Network, although African Americans make up less than one-third of the population in Georgia, the black arrest rate for drugs is five times greater than the white arrest rate. In addition, since 1990, African Americans have accounted for more than 75% of persons incarcerated for drug offenses in Georgia and make up 97.7% of the people in that state who are given life sentences for drug offenses.

In six California counties independently surveyed in 1995, 100% of those individuals sent to trial on drug charges were minorities, while the drug-using population in those same counties was more than 60% white. (The Black and White of Justice, Freedom Magazine, Volume 128) A CNN article in 1996 sited U.S. government figures that show more than 90 percent of all federal prosecutions for crack cocaine in 1995 were of African American defendants. In addition, unlike convictions for powered cocaine and other drugs (which wealthy, Caucasian defendants are more likely to use), a conviction for selling crack cocaine can carry a lengthy prison term without benefit of parole.

I once heard an African-American (Congresswoman? Spokeswoman? I forget...) propose the same argument on Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect, but some white guy (yeah, yeah, I know; Paley should have taken his Ginkoba that evening) seemed to refute it by pointing out that while Crack and Coke may be chemically similar, Crack is far more addictive, thus having the greater potential for stimulating criminal behavior. As he put it, "You never hear of coke neighborhoods, only crack neighborhoods. Why? Because crack more readily leads to the type of violent, impulsive behavior that fuels the crime rate. The police crackdown was a direct response to the pleas of the inner-city communities to do something about the epidemic. In fact, these policies were and are very popular among community leaders." Also, I remember reading in The End of Racism that when prior criminal history and the specific circumstances of the crime were taken into account, then the Black-White sentencing discrepancy disappears. Although narrow in focus, this study supports that contention. But I'll see what else I can find.

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Thoughts about the victimization methodology.

At first, I thought the victimization methodology would be a valid way to determine crime statistics. But then I realized what's going on in those studies. You're asking these liberal people in foreign countries if they feel victimized. Surely, you can see the tendency for error that will result. But, I thought, what's a better way to do it? Small crimes have a tendency to not be reported or over sensationalized. But, murders don't. Our police force is pretty good about counting bodies and no one can claim that they "felt murdered" in a survey.

If we're going to look at one statistic to determine crime, it might as well be murder.

No, they ask the people if they have been victimized. Either someone burgles your home or not, either someone beats you up or not. Sure, close calls happen, just like faked crime statistics. In any case, the fair question is: do white Americans commit murders more frequently than white European Americans? I suspect not; in fact, when lily-white American border cities are compared with Canadian cities of similar population density, America often comes out ahead.

In any case, the fair question is: do white Americans commit murders more frequently than white European Americans? I suspect not; in fact, when lily-white American border cities are compared with Canadian cities of similar population density, America often comes out ahead.

1) No, but let's face it: when evos talk about the "dangers" of fundamentalist Christianity, they're not referring to Joseph Lowery. They mean Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson. White Christians, in other words. 2) When trying to measure the effects of a single variable (religion), it is important to match groups that are as identical as possible in all other ways. This avoids confounding factors. 3) You may be forgetting, Cogzoid, that many of our European friends could be fined or imprisoned for frankly discussing racial matters. By keeping the discussion focused on whites, people like Midnightvoice can participate without fearing a Midnightknock on their door. Even the beautiful people can't fight The Man; take Brigitte Bardot, for example. Of course, given the current situation in Gay Paree, she might have to assume a new identity. May I suggest Cassandra? Mr. Newman, a remake of "Burn On" is badly needed...... Well, we can argue the causes of differential crime rates until even Homer nods. But this part of the study is also worth debating:

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The single greatest indicator of an area’s crime rate is not poverty or education, but race and ethnicity. Even when one controls for income, the black crime rate is much higher than the white rate.

Well my, my, my, let's get a wheelbarrow for Hillary's top hitters - I don't think their hind legs are of much use right now. Ya sure don't have much of an appetite without the courts to enshine your hunches in Law - but I guess that goes without saying. After all, why else would you be quiverin' behind Big Brother's britches?

That was after a Supreme Court ruling. So far, there has been no Supreme Court ruling on ID, and no evidence that any of the states are being intimidated by threats of anti-ID lawsuits. In fact, one of the Ohio board of education members said, â€ślet them sue us.â€ť A million dollars is just mad money for a state.</quote>

Silly Larry and his silly theories of "a new name = a new trial" theory of "stupid courts." Everyone with a brain knows that ID is creationism. It was just renamed in a contest right after Edwards v. Aguillard or McLean v. Arkansas (can't remember which right now and really don't care). Therefore, it has been ruled on by the Supreme Court. Then, the new name was exposed for all to see in Kitzmiller v. Dover.

And that, of course, is the beauty of the legal system. When you try to dress the emperor in new clothes, the legal system just doesn't care and looks a the fat, old-man underneath. We don't need to have 5,000 trials over 5,000 slightly variant names. We just need to see it and act.

Can someone please move Larry's comment to the Bathroom Wall or something? Now he's whining in earnest, the thread is guaranteed to go to at least 200 posts, which will make it hard to locate genuine points amidst the incipient morass of stupidity.

<blockquote>Can someone please move Larryâ€™s comment to the Bathroom Wall or something? Now heâ€™s whining in earnest, the thread is guaranteed to go to at least 200 posts, which will make it hard to locate genuine points amidst the incipient morass of stupidity.</blockquote>

If the arguments in favor of evolution are so overwhelming, then why do evolutionists need the help of the courts in suppressing criticism of evolution ? Now we are being told that ID cannot be taught even in philosophy class.

The litigation is not about protecting evolution. The litigation is about preventing the state from advocating a particular religion. You can't teach a class that advocates religious doctrine in a public school. It doesn't matter what label you slap on it.

--------------

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,18:37)

Many Jews were in comfortable oblivion about Hitler ... until it was too late.Many scientists will persist in comfortable oblivion about their Creator ... until it is too late.

Also, if the public does not know that ID is “deceptive,” then why not teach the public about ID in school so that they would be better able to make up their own minds about it ? By not teaching about ID in school, we are promoting ignorance, not reducing it.

Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? That's the kind of class that "dumb" Mirecki was going to teach!

"If the arguments in favor of evolution are so overwhelming, then why do evolutionists need the help of the courts in suppressing criticism of evolution ? Now we are being told that ID cannot be taught even in philosophy class."

Becuase idiots like yourself want to force your views upon my child.

It's no different than cheating or threatening my child. I will stand up and stop your from imposing your personal beliefs on my child.

You want a child who believe in they myth of Creation...then fvck with your own childs mind.

Since the Bathroom Wall is once more available, stuff that looks like itâ€™s not doing anything useful here is being moved there. If you are looking for your deathless prose, try there if it isnâ€™t showing up here.</blockquote>

I cannot believe that my response to your Comment #73162 was removed to the Bathroom Wall. My response was definitely on-topic. You removed my response not because it was off-topic, but because you disagreed with it.

Also, two of my responses to off-topic posts have been removed, but the original off-topic posts, Comment #73088 and Comment #73128, both of which are personally directed at me, are still here.

I will not post again on any of your threads until I have received an assurance from you that you have cleaned up your act.

It is about time that the commenters on Panda's Thumb were treated with some respect. Without the commenters, Panda's Thumb would be nothing, and you would not have gotten that big award from Scientific American magazine.

I expect this post to be removed too, but I hope that some of the commenters here get a chance to read it.

Yep we should teach the controversy about intelligent design creationism, that non-scientific theory in crisis. Let kids decide is my motto.

As far as the course content goes, let's start with the Wedge Document. Children should know that the Discovery Institute's two governing goals include:

1) To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies.

2) To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God.

Let's help kids learn the dangers of replacing our scientific understanding with "theistic understandings" (Pat Robertson's comments on a variety of subjects will be used as an example of "theistic understandings").

Then let's add the "Teach The Controversy" campaign championed by the Discovery Institute. We'll follow up those lessons with an in-depth study of the Kitzmiller v. Dover ruling.

Then let's teach what "peer reviewed" means. Let's also teach kids what the "scientific method" is as well as devote some time to identifying what is a testable theory and what is not. What is science and what is pseudo-science (intelligent design, healing crystals, cancer curing magnets, palm reading, etc). We should cover what is natural and what is supernatural too.

Yep, we should be teaching about intelligent design creationism in public schools. You will not get an arguement from me on that one.

...I cannot believe that my response to your Comment #73162 was removed to the Bathroom Wall. My response was definitely on-topic. You removed my response not because it was off-topic, but because you disagreed with it.

Also, two of my responses to off-topic posts have been removed, but the original off-topic posts, Comment #73088 and Comment #73128, both of which are personally directed at me, are still here.

I will not post again on any of your threads until I have received an assurance from you that you have cleaned up your act.

It is about time that the commenters on Panda's Thumb were treated with some respect. Without the commenters, Panda's Thumb would be nothing, and you would not have gotten that big award from Scientific American magazine.

I expect this post to be removed too, but I hope that some of the commenters here get a chance to read it.

LOL.

Let me point out to you what annoys people.

You post on a thread. Your point sounds on topic. Your backup arguments however are normally incorect.

Without the commenters, Panda's Thumb would be nothing, and you would not have gotten that big award from Scientific American magazine.

And the evidence that would support this statement is, what, precisely?

PT in its first week passed 1,000 visits per day. We're coming up on our 2e6th visit. I suspect if every post simply referred commenters to the AE AtBC forum, that the visit figures would not change by much. Besides which, J.A. Davison has already laid claim to this argument, saying that banning him would cause PT to wither and die. Guess what? Traffic has been up since then.

<quote>Whatever damage was being done was not irreversible. The alleged damage to the impressionable minds of the students could have been undone by brainwashing those minds in the great truths of evolution theory.

</quote>

Larry provides a living case example that disproves his own statement.

If post-hoc exposure to actual data and evidence could "brainwash" anybody, you would be our willing slave by now. We've spent weeks directing him to the completely verifiable mountains of evidence detailing aspects and support of evolutionary theory, but he consistently puts his hands over his eyes and willfully ignores it.

psychological defense mechanisms know no bounds; once exposed to a general set of theories that fit a pre-supposed worldview, it's quite hard to shake.

I personally have witnessed what happens when kids of high school age are exposed to slick but mis-representative ideas like ID. they initially cause mass confusion at best, and completely confirm ideologies for some.

that's why we teach science in science class, because it's based on evidence and experiment, not supposition and ideology.

"counter-intuitive and contrary to reason" certainly seems to be Larry`s mantra for all facts that run contrary to his preconceived notions. Leaving aside the fact that a great many of us find the idea of a non-corporeal person that is simultaneously omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent to be both completely meaningless, and useless except as a convention of langage, the concept is very "counter-intuitive and contrary to reason." Larry, most of modern science, including things that you can in no way pretend to deny are based on theories that are "counter-intuitive and contrary to reason." It is very bizarre to think that a picture can be broken down into innumerable tiny pieces, transmitted through the air, and reassabled in real time to form a comprehensible image, and yet this happens every time you turn on your television. Modern science is much more complicated and messy than the science merely as a mental exercise that was practiced by Aristotle and his like. Like it or not, the mere fact that a theory is not inherently obvious to the most cursory glance is no proof of its invalidity.

to which I have replied, and it looks like they're going to print my reply, which I include here (they will probably edit one or two things):

OK, business is slow and you guys are trying to start an argument here,aren't you?

Jack G. Atkinson Jr.'s letter is straight Bible-belt creationist tripe.It's an argument from incredulity ("I have qualifications that havenothing to do with the issue, and I can't imagine 'X', Q.E.D.") combinedwith an argument from authorities (Gitt and Behe) that have beenthoroughly discredited. Go ahead, folks, read Gitt and Behe, then go towww.talkorigins.org and search for Gitt and Behe.In a nutshell, Gittmissuses Claude Shannon's founding work in information theory, and Beherehashes the 19th century watchmaker analogy of William Paley. On top ofthat, Atkinson uses the key creationist phrase "only a theory" whichindicates that he has no idea what the word means in a scientificcontext (hint: it's way beyond the word he really means, which is"hypothesis"). Still more standard creationist ideas can be found in hisinappropriate conflation of cosmology and biology. Creationiststypically get confused here, what with the Big Bang getting us from 13billion years ago up to 4.5 billion years ago, geology (which Atkinsonignores) giving us an idea about how long ago the Earth and the solarsystem were formed, and biological evolution (which doesn't say anythingat all about the "particles" he complains about) taking us the rest ofthe way. When you absolutely know that it all started "In the beginning"and that was during one week about 6000 years ago, there's not muchdifference in your mind between millions of years and billions of years,or cosmology and biology.

One must admit that the entire "particles to man" flow does indeed haveone huge scientific hole in it, called "abiogenesis," that is, life fromnon-life. Yeah, it's true, no one on this planet really knows how ithappened. Atkinson, however, would have all inquiry in this matterbrought to a screeching halt with the words, "God did it." Where wouldwe be if Ben Franklin had been satisfied with that answer regardinglightning? The proper scientific answer is not "God did it" but "wedon't know," which is the beginning of wisdom. The bottom line, Mr.Atkinson, is that what's under attack is not simply evolution, notsimply biology education, but science itself. And that jolly well shouldbe of concern to future EEs, and present ones.

You may genuinely enjoy this book. Not only does it cover a lot of ground you seem totally unfamiliar with, but it would let others know that your subsequent pronouncements along these lines were lies rather than merely ignorance.

I'm just having a think about where down the line a heritable mutation might occur, and I'm concentrating on sexual reproduction.

I'm using the definition of mutation from talk origins - mutation is a change in a gene. I'm looking at the types of mutation as well and thinking about which types are most likely to result in a heritable mutation.

If anyone knows of any studies comparing the likelihood of various types of mutation and can point me in that direction I'd be grateful.

The PT thread on "Falsifying ID" was closed to comments, so I'm stomping off in a huff and posting my response to Mr. Heddle here. I am an ARTISTE, and I must EXPRESS myself...

Mr. Heddle: I never said anything about a "gap." What are you asking me?

If the cosmological constant were not fine tuned then there would be no stars...

I believe what you mean to say is "If the cosmological constant were something other than what it is..." The difference is important: the mere fact that the constant is to our liking, does not prove it was "fine-tuned" by anyone. And by the way, if you want to advance a truly scientific hypothesis about "fine-tuning," you'll have to postulate a specific mechanism by which such "fine-tuning" can take place. Unless of course it's by a supernatural agency, which takes us outside the realm of science...and even astrology...

The difference is important: the mere fact that the constant is to our liking, does not prove it was "fine-tuned" by anyone.

David Heddle has already addressed this: As he sees it, the purpose of the universe is to produce us. This is, as Heddle himself says, something you simply accept as a given. We are not an arbitrary result of contingent accidents, we are the *purposeful end product* of the universe. Yep, you and me (and especially David).

And Heddle, as I read him, even admits that if you do NOT accept that the universe was crafted expressly to produce us, then in addition to being wrong, you have no particular reason to prefer any set of constants over any other.

I think you're on the right track. Heddle is a Believer. There are certain areas that are simply not subject to evaluation. He knows this in an instinctive way. I don't think he's deliberately obscure, I think that his knowledge is doing battle with his, well, brainwashing seems a harsh term but I can't think of anything more descriptive.

So it works out the way it often does against this sort of belief system. We are here because we HAVE to be, doctrine permits nothing less. We must work backwards to determine why this must be so. At some point the *underlying assumptions* are arbitrary, and Heddle realizes that. But he also knows that his underlying assumptions are REQUIRED, his faith tells him so. Therefore they must be "scientific" in the sense that science describes the Real World.

So I don't read him as two-faced at all. He KNOWS God intended him. He knows that evolution is internally consistent, and consistent with the evidence. He basically understands the evidence. He knows God must have intended this. He knows that any interpretation of the evidence that does not *require* his existence must be wrong. He understands that evolution does NOT require his existence, but otherwise it's rock-solid. What to do, what to do?

I really feel kind of sorry for Heddle. He's both intelligent enough and educated enough to understand the relevant aspects of reality, but his mind was turned at too early an age to recover. What got wired into his brain early, can't be 100% reconciled with what got educated into his brain later. Neither can be discarded, but the two cannot possibly be honestly reconciled. It's kind of interesting to watch this play out.

I'm working on a theory (like Paley ), and am wondering if our Islander friends can clarify Blair's position on ID for me?

I've read several UK news articles, but all seem to actually deal with his positions kind of indirectly.

Is he voicing 'teach the controversy', open denial of evolutionary theory, or just what exactly?

Nobody else has answered you, so I'll try.

Blair is a believer in choice, and the creationist stuff got caught up as part of this. He may well not have a strong opinion on evolution: my guess is that he believes it to be true, but doesn't think about it. Most Britons are like that.

He wouldn't push any policy on this even if he was a creationist. Partly because it's not his job: the British system is more diffuse, so it would be the job of the Education Secretary (who's got too many other things to worry about now). He would also be aware that it's a vote loser: he would look like a fundamentalist and would be attacked from all sides, including from within his party.

In summary: one less thing to worry about.

Bob

--------------It is fun to dip into the various threads to watch cluelessness at work in the hands of the confident exponent. - Soapy Sam (so say we all)

guthrie,I would dissagree on the BBC being influenced by the government of the day anymore.

About the article though. I doubt if Tony Blair had any idea whatsoever about what that school taught. I would hazard a guess that he just said any old crap to avoid appearing ignorant.

There is something wrong with the UK political system when a MP can't just say "I do not know, I will find out and report back to you".

Quote

I would dissagree on the BBC being influenced by the government of the day anymore.

HHmm, well, we shall have to agree to disagree.

Quote

About the article though. I doubt if Tony Blair had any idea whatsoever about what that school taught. I would hazard a guess that he just said any old crap to avoid appearing ignorant.

I agree entirely.

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There is something wrong with the UK political system when a MP can't just say "I do not know, I will find out and report back to you".

Absolutely. My knowledge of parliamentary preocedure is miniscle, but I do know that they have plenty of researchers who could find things outquickly enough (A few days), but the problem then is that Blair might have to take a stand on the issue, something he is I think desperate to avoid doing. Its hard to find issues on which he really truly takes a stand, rather than saying something wishy washy and content free.

I cant quite see how. Sure, we still have the CHurch of England as the official church in this country, but in terms of removing religion from school, I really dont see why it shoule be much of a problem if taken along the lines it can be in the USA.

Sorry. I did intend to adress that in my last post, but forgot.

I was not reffering to state schools with a faith base. Rather the schools actually paid for by the churches. I can imagine these closing if it was ilegal to have a faith requirement.

While I think state education is a good thing in principle. It does not seem to be managed with excellence.

I think you can say that about every single human endeavour that you can think of. Every single one. No exceptions.

I start more from broad observations that mandatory basic education is necessary to further peoples betterment and self fulfillment etc. This has historically been state provided, and I cannot see how it can be provided any other way. So, going from this, the question becomes how can we improve things as much as possible given certain constraints like money, time etc etc. For example, smaller class sizes do help somehat to improve test scores. Great, lets reduce class sizes from 30 to 20! But then we need lots more teachers, and more money to spend on them.

Then, managed excellently. I have worked full time in 3 different private companies (I have a chemistry degree). All of them exhibited definite lacks of management excellence. From reading newspapers, I have gathered that some failing schools show a lack of excellence, but when you put a good headmaster/ mistress in place, change a couple of teachers, wait a year or two, then it improves. This suggests to me that said excellence depends as much upon the individuals involved as anything to do with the structure of the organisation etc.

As for benefiting teachers, I know a few teachers, seeing as my mother is a retired primary school teacher. They would chew you out for suggesting that the main purpose of state education is to benefit the teachers, but then they are good teachers- the problem is the bad ones and the people who aid and abet them. (And I have a story or two about that, but they can hardly be aried on a public forum.)

I am too young to rember the grammar school, but the problem with the grammar school system that I recall reading about was that, well apart from being not "practical" enough in the modern sense, it also encouraged elitism.

As for admission standards, the simple question remains- what do you do with the children who cannot get into any school? Sure, some of them are obnoxious toe rags; others have a damaging and enervating home background which makes it almost impossible for them to get on in school.

Universities- I actually agree about the 50% target. I see it as some weird magic trick. I can see no reason to have 50% university educated, because a REAL university education is not suitable for everyone. Sure, i liked some of it, but I'm part intellectual. I would rather we copied germany, which last i knew had trades colleges and suchlike for pupils whose abilities lay less in essay writing or geekery, and more in woodworking or plumbing or design or suchlike.

Of course my occaisional rants about the british economy now being a service oriented one where just about any skill greater than paper shuffling or smooth talking salesmanship doesnt seem necessary is nothing more than my own biased opinion and is said somewhat tongue in cheek. Yet I am sure you know that it sounds good to say that 50% of our youngsters are university educated, even if they never do anything with the degree, and its comparatively worthless compared to old degrees because the modern ones involve much more regurgitation of facts and less actual thinking.

edited to add:I'll get back to you about the church schools. Its not something I have really even come across, but your point deserves some consideration.

guthrie,You do raise a lot of good points. far too many to answer in a single post. But I will give a few points of view.

The teachers you mentioned you claimed where good. Fine, they would never have been the problem. I can remember a few bad teachers from my school days, 1 maths teacher in particular belonged in gaol rather than school. The unions made it impossible for the head to sack him. That is wrong.

Admission standards. If you are for them it means seperating students of ability/determination from others. If you are against, it means lumping "bad" students in with "good" ones.

Out of that choice I would opt for school standards and removing disruptive pupils. Give everyone the same oportunity, but remove those that would abuse it and drag others down.

As you have a Chemistry degree you are one of the elite, like it or not. You have a degree that is difficult to obtain and actually is usefull in real work.

A target of 50% University education is pointless though. Especially as most of those degrees will be pretty pointless. How many people with degrees in media studies do we need?

I cynically believe that the government wants the 50% target just to keep employment figures looking better.

A tiered school system is something I would like to consider. Not every pupil is suited to accademic life. Why waste their time and have them disrupt classes? Some students would be better off learning more practical things from an earlier age.

Don't get me wrong here. They should still be taught a broad education and should they decide (later on) they wish for more accademic studies, then it ought to be available.

Testing right now seems to be taking away a lot of teachers freedom to teach. But I suppose it employs a few people in NGOs.

Church schools: In Wigan a lot of the best schools are run by various churches. My sister moved house and started to atend church in order to get her daughter into one. It insists that parents play an active part in their childrens education. Apearances are that this alone improves standards. They do not require a child to pass tests, rather the parents have to do this. Not written exams, but a willingness to assist the school and play a part in the childrens education.

Historically education only relatively recently became a matter of state. All the really old schools were either paid for by parents (public/UK...private/USA) or established by churches.

Oxford University IIRC started as a theological teaching establishment.

Anyway I have rambled on for long enough. This is a very large topic with an awful lot of facets.

"What in principal is wrong with schools setting admission standards? Why have we just about abandoned the grammer school?"

It take it that you didn't go to a Grammar school then Steve???

-- actually Larry got me looking for stuff on this.

Faith schools aren't funded by the church any more Steve - the reason we have them is that when education was nationalised here, charitable faith schools were brought into the system.

Faith schools often perform 'well' in the sense that they have better performing students - but then they have informal forms of selection which pick out more kids wiith more supportive parents. Children in care don't get a look in for example. Emmanuel College in Gateshead - which is one of Blairs 'City Acadamies' takes an unusually low number of children with 'special learning needs' - and then doesn't look after them well - go check their Ofsted report. These 'Acadamies' also get extra state funding that other schools don't get - the Audit Commision doesn't think they offer value for money even when they perform 'well'.

Blair takes a simplistic view of this and wants to expand the number of state supported faith schools. This will mean dividing kids by religion at a young age - putting schools in the hands of all sorts of faith groups and private individuals and 'charities' - and leaving the 'leftovers' and the children that need the most help to be taught in underfunded 'bog standard' schools.

I think he's going to come a cropper with this one.

The best resources I have found are on the British Humanist Society site here:

Before I started primary school my mother had taught me to read. The result? I ended up being sent to the back of the class with a book, while the other kids were being taught to read.

This happened to me too (in the U.S.), minus the book. I was briefly put into the slow readers group in first grade (age 6), despite already reading at at least fourth grade level. Since I'd had little contact with children my age when I started school, I was somewhat quiet around other kids at that age, and I think my teacher considered me slow. (I was already helping cousins three or four years older with their reading and vocabulary!) It took several months for my teacher to realize that I could read and to remedy the situation.

We didn't have the equivalent of the eleven plus in the U.S., but there was still a considerable amount of "tracking" here in the 1960s and 1970s. By that time, I was benefiting from being placed in an advanced track, but years later, I recall a very intelligent friend saying, "I lost the chance to take high school calculus in the seventh grade."

(For those outside the U.S.; Calculus, at least at the time, was usually taken by academic-track high school seniors, at roughly age 17. My friend had been tracked into a slightly slower math class at 12, and there was no way at all to catch up. None.)

Steve .. I can't see that there is any threat to existing faith schools. I'd like to see extra funding for alternatives in places where the the majority of schools are faith schools; such as Northern Ireland, and parts of Scotland for example; and where faith schooling re-inforces intolerance and sectarianism.

I am determinedly against the further expansion of faith schools across the country. I think that reasoning that it will lead to an increase in standards is bogus. As all faiths will have to be treated equally, then this will lead to an expansion in the number of Islamic schools in areas like the North-West where you come from for example - and do nothing for integration and the development of a 'British Identity'.

The American rejection of ID in schools doesn't come from an analysis of good or bad science as such - it comes from the realisation that true religious freedom requires that the state stays out of such matters. The justification at the moment for the expansion of faith schools is that they 'perform better' than ordinary schools. By extension of this reasoning then if 'faith schools' of a particular type start performing better than others (and this is the case of course) - the logically these schools should be favoured and expanded - whilst 'failing ones' are closed down.

However it is slso the case that the faith-based school system is at least partly responsible for perpetuating the differences between two tribes. There are only 58 schools where you can be taught with children of other beliefs - the very first one opened in 1981.

There is now a 'Nortern Ireland Council for Integrated Education'. On i't website you can access independant research that shows that Children that attend 'Integrated' schools are more likely to occupy the middle ground in politics:

Quote

First, at a time of ongoing sectarianism and frustrated politics, where many people seem programmed into the view that identity is something which we are receive at birth and is fixed for life, rather like our DNA. This research confirms that young people who attend an integrated school are willing to challenge such stereotypes by being "more likely to reject traditional identities and allegiances than those who attended a segregated one". They are able to explore the whole meaning of identity, because integrated schools provide safe spaces within which they are supported and encouraged to challenge sectarian stereotypes and explore alternative models of citizenship.

Second, those findings of the wider study which were based upon a large sample of the adult population (Life and Times survey) suggest that "the positive effects of integrated schooling extend into later life". There is no coincidence in the fact that the title of the research links integrated schooling with political progress, as the report goes on to suggest that an integrated education nurtures the development of individuals who "have the potential to create a new common ground in N Ireland politics".

This willingness to engage with the other takes place on both sides of the so called "political divide" as evidenced by the report´s findings that "Protestants who experience a formally integrated education occupy the middle ground in N Ireland politics" while "in general Catholics who attended either a formally or informally integrated school were more likely than their segregated counterparts to abandon their traditional territorial allegiances".

I can't speak from experience like yourself - but don't you think that children in Northern Ireland could have an equally good or even better education if they weren't seperated according to the faith of their parents at age 5?

However it is slso the case that the faith-based school system is at least partly responsible for perpetuating the differences between two tribes. There are only 58 schools where you can be taught with children of other beliefs - the very first one opened in 1981.

There is now a 'Nortern Ireland Council for Integrated Education'. On i't website you can access independant research that shows that Children that attend 'Integrated' schools are more likely to occupy the middle ground in politics:

Quote

First, at a time of ongoing sectarianism and frustrated politics, where many people seem programmed into the view that identity is something which we are receive at birth and is fixed for life, rather like our DNA. This research confirms that young people who attend an integrated school are willing to challenge such stereotypes by being "more likely to reject traditional identities and allegiances than those who attended a segregated one". They are able to explore the whole meaning of identity, because integrated schools provide safe spaces within which they are supported and encouraged to challenge sectarian stereotypes and explore alternative models of citizenship.

Second, those findings of the wider study which were based upon a large sample of the adult population (Life and Times survey) suggest that "the positive effects of integrated schooling extend into later life". There is no coincidence in the fact that the title of the research links integrated schooling with political progress, as the report goes on to suggest that an integrated education nurtures the development of individuals who "have the potential to create a new common ground in N Ireland politics".

This willingness to engage with the other takes place on both sides of the so called "political divide" as evidenced by the report´s findings that "Protestants who experience a formally integrated education occupy the middle ground in N Ireland politics" while "in general Catholics who attended either a formally or informally integrated school were more likely than their segregated counterparts to abandon their traditional territorial allegiances".

I can't speak from experience like yourself - but don't you think that children in Northern Ireland could have an equally good or even better education if they weren't seperated according to the faith of their parents at age 5?

I would not doubt that. What background do you expect those children to have though? I suspect those children are all from non-bigotted families. Anyway, I have no real desire to defend religious segregation (and especially in NI).

My original point on faith schools was that I would not like to see them banned.

My argument against banning faith schools is:1. Some of the best schools in the UK are faith based.2. Banning could cause school closures.3. It will most likely creat a lot of unnecesary indignation from parents.

guthrie,I did not read a single paragraph in your post that I would dissagree with.

State schools seem to be getting increasingly handicapped by government interference. It would seem very difficult for a teacher/head to deal with disruptive pupils now. Individual "rights" have been promoted in a ridiculous way. Problem students seem to have more rights than those that wish to study.

Why should it be so difficult to exclude a student who constantly disrupts a class of 30+?

A good question. I personally dont use ideas like "rights" very often. The problem when talking about rights is one of balance as usual, and also as usual, any group of people who are not properly overseen with appropriate checks and balances frequently get it wrong.

From my point of view, it is a combination of:

1) Nowhere else to put disruptive child.2) Need to meet gvt targets, which whilst by themselves seem quite good, overall have a deleterious effect.3) Their parents will possibly kick up a fuss, and you probably have a rought idea how many parents believe their little angels can do no wrong. 4) Poor headteachering.

I'm working in a voluntary capacity with eight year -olds in a primary school.

It's in a difficult area - and some of these kids have truly lousy parents. These kids tend to be hard work - but why should they be punished twice for something that they can do nothing about?

Faith schools drop kids like this at the drop of a hat - a nice simple way to push up their score compared to other schools (I believe there was a report published just today that backs this up ah.. found it..Kelly suppresses report).Other schools then have to take them in. I think that state school should do their best by all nations children - even if it it means working harder on the ones that are showing problems.

Otherwise by the time these kids get to be teenagers, they're even worse trouble; and after that - unemployment crime, drugs - it would have been cheaper to give the kids a decent schooling and some opportunities in the first place.I've worked with enough unemployed illiterate and inumerate teenagers to know what sink schools are expected to turn out. Blair wants to let them drop even further behind to appease the middle classes.

Oh .. and the Cat Stevens info...

Quote

Call for madrassas inside state schools, TES, 14/10/05Muslim experts suggest ways to tackle alienation behind London bombingsMadrassas, the religious schools linked to mosques, should have the option of moving to the site of their local state schools, an education taskforce set up by Tony Blair following the London bombings has said.The group of Muslim academics and educationists, which includes Yusuf Islam, formally pop star Cat Stevens, handed in its report to Charles Clarke, Home Secretary, last week.Proposals included the creation of a Muslim educational research centre, a national ethnic achievement programme and shaking up the UK's Islamic schools or madrassas...

<i>I canâ€™t seem to find any of this. Why should it be taught with zero support? Or am I just missing the support? Please note, by the by, that Iâ€™m not asking for a refutation of evolution.</i>

No matter, those who go as craaazy about "evolution" as the writers here seem to would also be against refutation of any <i>type</i> being taught anyway. And how would one set about refuting an amorphous term that can mean anything from a specific and observed change in the size of the beaks of birds to all "change" that has ever taken place in the Cosmos? You may as well stick your hand in a mud puddle and claim to have refuted the water that flows around it. Interesting how scientific "evolution" is though, given that the term covers so much hypothetical goo that can never be refuted and so many hypotheses that were never refined and defined into sound theories to be tested in the first place. How do you refute something that cannot rise to the level of being objectively wrong in the first place?

If you want to discuss the urge to censor, we'd love to hear why the ID blog Uncommon Descent banned more people last Friday (26 that we know of) than Panda's Thumb and After the Bar Closes, combined, has banned in nearly 2 years of operation (11).

<blockquote>Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha has long criticized the Legislature for allowing prayers to be offered on the floor and makes a point of not being present when the morning prayers are given.

He stormed onto the floor after Swartley was done and in a raised voice called the pastorâ€™s comments outrageous and out of line.

â€śThe day has been poisoned for me,â€ť said Chambers, who added that he had never been as enraged and furious in the Legislature, and that â€śdonkeysâ€ť such as Swartley should be yanked from the podium in the future.</blockquote>

It is interesting to contrast the lack of civility, immediate attempts at censorship of speech and the tendency to be ruled by their own feelings that those with the urge to merge tend to as compared to the Founders. E.g.<blockquote>On Thursday, June 28, 1787, Benjamin Franklin delivered a powerful speech to the Constitutional Convention, which was embroiled in a bitter debate over how each state was to be represented in the new government. [...] Being the senior member of the convention at 81 years of age, he commanded the respect of all present, and, as recorded in James Madison's detailed records, he rose to speak in this moment of crisis:Mr. President:The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance & continual reasonings with each otherâ€”our different sentiments on almost every question, several of the last producing as many noes as ayes, is methinks a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the Human Understanding.

We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those Republics which, having been formed with the seeds of their own dissolution, now no longer exist. And we have viewed Modern States all round Europe, but find none of their Constitutions suitable to our circumstances.

In this situation of this Assembly, groping as it were in the dark to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, Sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understanding?

In the beginning of the Contest with C. Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for Divine protection. Our prayers, Sir, were heard, & they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor.To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance?

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truthâ€”that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?

We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that â€śexcept the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.â€ť I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel:We shall be divided by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages.

And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing Governments by Human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to moveâ€”that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.</blockquote>(America's God and CountryBy William J. Federer :246-249)

It's interesting to compare that to the tendencies of those stupid and ignorant enough to believe in the various Darwinian creation myths that have been advanced over time. E.g., in the eugenics movement those who opposed "science" were labelled as "ape clergy" and so on. What Darwinists seem to mean when they call other people animals who have no right to speak and should be "should be yanked from the podium" is rather queer, given that they're typically the same mental retards that support "animal rights." E.g. Richard Dawkins.

Note the talk of "poison," notice how those with the urge to merge speak in language based on immanence that tends to bleed into a medicalized cure. â€śThe day has been poisoned for me,â€ť said Chambers.

So he gives himself away, yet writers on the Panda's Thumb apparently like him. No surpise, as they are like him.

How about looking into positive arguments for your position instead of passively waiting for things to attack? Could it be because that might lead to actual learning--obviously going against some sort of IDist creed. Instead of lurking around "pro-evolution websites" looking for any scrap of information you can find, perhaps you should be doing some research to advance your cause.

What a grouchy, unpleasant fellow you are, mynym! How perfectly you exemplify EVERYTHING not only wrong, but unpleasant, about creationists (under whatever cover name).

And, as a bonus, you exemplify everything that is right about this group of disagreeable, cowardly "Homo Merkin": nothing.

What a trial it gets to be, having to scroll past all these lonesome, grumpy jerks on this thread! Of course, the only "positive" and non-mental-masturbatory goal of such vain folk as mynym, DH, CC, and Larry (how long the list of utterly vacuous, twisted trolls now is!) is to make reading PT so unpleasant as to drive people away from the site.

Then please adhere to your own words, since it seems that you have nothing to say about the "mountains of evidence" for Darwinism anyway.

<i>Wow, mynym, your posts get less coherent every day. I guess their total lack of any coherent content or structure makes them â€śirefutable,â€ť eh?</i>

Only in your own imagination...

<i>You need some lessons in clear writing from the LaRouchies and flat-earthers. Either that, or more medsâ€¦</i>

I suspect that you would drug people if you could if that was the way the Herd was running these days given the totalitarianism typical to those grounded in scientism and the way that they seek physical solutions to metaphysical problems.

Too bad you live in America, huh? A nation founded on and defined by ideas rather than a physical people, who would have <i>thought</i> it...

<i>What a grouchy, unpleasant fellow you are, mynym! How perfectly you exemplify EVERYTHING not only wrong, but unpleasant, about creationists (under whatever cover name).</i>

If those with the urge to merge found my writing pleasant just as they seem to like the uncivilized and censorious politician above then I would be concerned that I was not making enough separations, discriminations and that <i>type</i> of thing. It's good to see that is not the case. Of course you didn't really say anything about the perversion of separation of church and state from the intentions of Founders like Franklin that leads into absurd situations like some federal judge trying to define "religion" and "science" for everyone, but that's to be expected.

Dude, if you think we're that easily insulted, you're probably still riding the little bike with the training wheels. Hint: the metal pipes that look like cow horns are to help you steer. Woah! Watch out for that tree!

Eesh, mynym, that must have really hurt!

<i>(And for those who call us heartless, I sincerely hope the tree is okay...)</i>

Dude, if you think we're that easily insulted, you're probably still riding the little bike with the training wheels. Hint: the metal pipes that look like cow horns are to help you steer. Woah! Watch out for that tree!

Eesh, mynym, that must have really hurt!

<i>(And for those who call us heartless, I sincerely hope the tree is okay...)</i>

The couple in the Genesis named Adam and Eve are not the first humans and the Bible does not even imply that they are.

I have never read the original Hebrew Bible. Now I see how little I really knew about how wrong the modern Christian versions were. Here I thought that the Bible says that Adam and Eve were the first humans.

The couple in the Genesis named Adam and Eve are not the first humans and the Bible does not even imply that they are. They are noteworthy because God chooses to overtly interact with them and have a record of those interactions recorded for posterity in the Bible. There also are other theological interpretations we need not get into here. But this happens many other times in the Bible. For example, God chooses, seemingly out of the blue, to interact with Abraham, and no explicit reason is provided to justify this choice.

Can you give us your translations carol? Genesis 19:5-8 and Deuteronomy 33:11You see, those verses are among a few from the old testament that seem like they would point to a provincial god, one that does, in fact contradict scientific findings. I can explain further but I might just have a bad translation so I am waiting for a good one first.

Wow, an entire religion founded on incorrect data. Like cloning human stem cells.

I am amazed how Carol's logic allows her to defend a book that portrays women in the context that it does.Women are shown to be 2nd class,valued less than a man, and in Gods eyes women are the possessions of men,in fact women and girls don't really count as persons in "The Lords Eyes" Women are the guilty party in all errors, men are but innocent victims.There are hundreds of examples of this in the bible and I'm sure Carol will have a apologetic answer for all of them. Oh yes I can quote book and verse to most of them.

To the Admins, WHY WAS MY POST DELETED? There are plenty of other posts on this page regarding the Bible, but mine gets deleted? Why the selective deletions? Please don't turn this site into Uncommon Descent.

Okay, so I see my post was moved to the bathroom wall. Well, I wanted to tell Carol that Chapter 2 of Genesis contradicts Chapter 1 (Adam as first human vs. previous humans, respectively). But I really don't feel like getting too much into it. I'm no expert on the subject.

<quote>I am trying not to wander too far off topic here.</quote>We might, of course, note that this thread is *supposed* to be about the Hindu effort to teach their doctrine as science. Carol's bible-babble is irrelevant. I guess Landa doesn't have the One True Version of Hindu texts, so Carol feels the need to change the subject to a book she CAN sell.

<quote>I am trying not to wander too far off topic here.</quote>We might, of course, note that this thread is *supposed* to be about the Hindu effort to teach their doctrine as science. Carol's bible-babble is irrelevant. I guess Landa doesn't have the One True Version of Hindu texts, so Carol feels the need to change the subject to a book she CAN sell.

I have the distinct impression that Carol has no interest whatsoever in any religious text other than the Old Testament. So it's not too surprising she should veer off topic if we're discussing the beliefs of Hindus.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

You pose some excellent questions, some of which you can find answers to in previous postings on this thread.

To elaborate a bit further, you need to realize that Hebrew is a beautiful language (I speak from experience with fluency in 7 languages) in which words have multiple meanings, borrowed meanings and convergent meanings. Some single words in Hebrew require 8 or 9 words in English to be satisfactorally translated.

The Hebrew AUDUM (I transliterate on purpose so you don't automatically think "Adam", the name of an individual, when you see that word) has three different meanings throughout the Bible and even in modern Hebrew. The word can be used to mean (1) human, humanity or humankind, as a species, (2) man, as opposed to female, and (3) Adam, the name of any individual by the name. In Genesis the word is employed in all three ways, depending on the context. It is actually easy to ascertain which meaning is intended from the context.

In verses 26 and 27 of chapter one, quoted above, the context makes it absolutely clear that AUDUM there refers to "human". There can be no reasonable doubt about it.

So why are some popular English translations wrong? For a combination of reasons. Ignorance, preconceived notions, mischief making, sloppiness, and agendas to be acted upon.

For people who don't like the (oh so lenient) moderation of PT please remember that the Antievolution.org discussion board allows the general public to open threads of their own. And this on someone else's dime. Carol you are only as welcome here as you allow yourself to be.

--------------"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."-John F. Kennedy

Oh, come on. You know Carol. If you want to know what she thinks, buy the book. You know the one. The one, single, holy, divinely inspired, has no errors, doesn't conflict with science, says the sun went round the earth backward, "kill every man, woman, child, and animal on that land because I'm giving it to my chosen people", translated by a fella she just happens to be doing business for book.

--------------Lou FCD is still in school, so we should only count him as a baby biologist. -carlsonjok -deprecatedI think I might love you. Don't tell Deadman -Wolfhound

"I am still a bit angry, both with myself and the ID movement, because I originally fell for their hoax."

I would suggest that you not be too hard on yourself there.

First, the ID people really believe in ID. I give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they did not set out to deceive anyone.

Second, while their theory has no scientific basis, it could very well be vaild in the sense that it happened that way. In other words, the universe and life could very well be intelligently designed, whether we can substantiate that assertion or not. There is nothing in science that contradicts ID.

Third, scientific work almost always involves "wasting" time on theories that turn out to be wrong, going down blind alleys and chasing dead ends, sometimes for years (even decades). That is the nature of the beast. So you had a theory and then reconsidered. So what? It's all in a days work of a scientist.

My exposure to Hinduism and Buddhism has not benefited from the "inside sources" you have had, but from symposia conducted by westernized "experts" that always left me with the feeling that my grasp is less than complete.

I now wonder why that committee of rabbis that went to India to investigate Hinduism came back with the conclusion that it constitutes idol worship in the biblical sense, which implies that the adherents view their gods as having independent power to act. Perhaps they interviewed only members of those sects you speak of that do believe this. In that case they did a shoddy job.

I am amazed my last post was not bounced before you got a chance to see it.

<quote>My exposure to Hinduism and Buddhism has not benefited from the â€śinside sourcesâ€ť you have had, but from symposia conducted by westernized â€śexpertsâ€ť that always left me with the feeling that my grasp is less than complete.</quote>

Learning about a thing by hearing what others say about that thing, is never a good thing.

Sort of like learning about Judaism by asking the Klan about it.

<quote>I now wonder why that committee of rabbis that went to India to investigate Hinduism came back with the conclusion that it constitutes idol worship in the biblical sense, </quote>

Well, what the #### did anyone EXPECT they would do --- declare that Judaism and Hinduism were wonderfully compatible with each other?

<quote>which implies that the adherents view their gods as having independent power to act. Perhaps they interviewed only members of those sects you speak of that do believe this.</quote>

Pure statistics makes that exceedingly unlikely.

<quote>In that case they did a shoddy job.</quote>

They saw what they wanted to see. Religions have a funny way of doing that. (shrug)

What is the point of displaying responses to posts that have been bounced? How is anyone reading these responses supposed to put them in context, other than going back forth between here and the bathroom wall? This is ridiculous!

--------------"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived, and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."-John F. Kennedy

A team of scientists led by James M. Clark, Ronald B. Weintraub Associate Professor of Biology at The George Washington University, and Xu Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) in Beijing, have discovered a new genus and species of dinosaur that is the oldest known and most primitive tyrannosauroid.

<I>Your being so ready and willing to dispose of certain questions, such as â€śwhy are we hereâ€ť by just declaring â€śwe do not knowâ€ť and merrily walk away from the issue, in contrast to other questions where theories are called upon to explain phenomena, betrays the artifical restriction on science I spoke of.

If Darwin would have applied the same attitude to the issue of the origin of the species, he would have just declared â€śthey are just hereâ€ť and â€śwe do not knowâ€ť and moved on to other things. The point of science is not to walk away from issues by shrugging our shoulders and declaring that we just do not know.

So why the selective application of this approach on the part the scientific community? I claim it is due to the big elephant lurking behind certain issues, a monster many prefer not to face.</I>

That's exactly correct and was the whole point of Lynn Margulis hard line against "neodarwinians". You don't call your peers "neodarwinian bullies" as the honered guest speaker at the last evoloutionary conference simply because you're having a normal dispute with them. Lynn's was a direct shot at the form of fanaticism vs antifanaticism that leads to the willful denial of evidence via their own brand of how they are willing to interpret evidence.

Notice that PvM has now resorted to appeals to comparitively lame authority, trying to dig up lame dirt, rather than to admit that I've made a single valid point, which I can seriously back-up with hard physics that he can't begin to understand, so he avoids it like the plague.

This is highly common to the whole neodarwinistic mentality that causes the judge in dover to admit that there may be a scientific point that IDists are not motivated to make. It's the same mentality that causes them to contuously and falsely leap to assume and call me, an atheist, a creationist.

This cannot happen without a whole bunch of pre-conceived prejudice behind it, because I never argue for ID, nor for supernatural entities. Einstein and others have had a very similar purposefullly structured worldview as mine from the physics of relativity as applied to the structuring of the observed universe without uncertainty. It is not at all out of the realm of science, but the willful denial of evidence for it is highly prevelant within the evobiolgy community.

I interpret from the physics what Leonard Susskind sees as a scientist when he says that "the appearance of design is undeniable"... the difference being that I know that it can't be about ID if the landscape fails.

It's a valid scientific interpretation, whether PvM or anybody else here wants to admit it, or not, and so I don't really care what happens here, since they continue to typically ignore the valid points, while attacking only perceived weaknesses.

[...]A multi-center team has deposited the draft genome sequence of the rhesus macaque monkey into free public databases for use by the worldwide research community, [...]Overall, the rhesus genome shares about 92 to 95 percent of its sequence with the human (Homo sapiens) and more than 98 percent with the chimpanzee.

If the campaign to establish the compatibility of science and religion is to be predicated on the idea that Genesis is meant to be interpreted allegorically or metaphorically, it will achieve pitifully little and certainly not help the cause of science. Such an approach is rightly viewed by millions as based on the evisceration of the words of the Bible of any real meaning and will be rejected. So there is no reason for science to support such an approach.

What the scientific community ought to be supporting is establishing the compatibility of science and religion EVEN IF THE BIBLE IS INTERPRETED LITERALLY. As I have reported here on many occasions, such an approach has successfully been accomplished by various recent scholars, such as Judah Landa's popular IN THE BEGINNING OF, among others.

Now, that is an approach that can and will actually make a difference.

By the way, Andy H (i.e. Larry and several other aliases). Why, given your <i>obvious</i> concern over ethical issues, do you continue to violate the ethics of the PT board and dishonestly post as several people?

Don't hypocrisy and lying bother you?

Don't you realize that such behavior means that no one is likely to take <i>anything</i> you say seriously?

I truly am curious why you exhibit this peculiar and dishonest behavior.

There's an ikonBoard bug that hoses topics once a very long text message is entered. I've switched DB managers this morning so that I have a chance to intervene via the DB interface, but to restore the currently missing messages would take more work than I can budget time for at the moment.

If the campaign to establish the compatibility of science and religion is to be predicated on the idea that Genesis is meant to be interpreted allegorically or metaphorically, it will achieve pitifully little and certainly not help the cause of science. Such an approach is rightly viewed by millions as based on the evisceration of the words of the Bible of any real meaning and will be rejected. So there is no reason for science to support such an approach.

I thought the campaign was about establishing the compatibility of religion and reality - for the benefit of religion.

--------------

Quote (afdave @ Oct. 02 2006,18:37)

Many Jews were in comfortable oblivion about Hitler ... until it was too late.Many scientists will persist in comfortable oblivion about their Creator ... until it is too late.

Comments from one of the PT threads re inaccessibility of AtBC (and the whole Antievolution BB, actually) last night. I couldn't get on from home; won't know til tonight if that's still the case. I can get on from work today (obviously).

Henry

==========Comment #83041

Posted by BWE on March 1, 2006 10:12 PM (e)

Although I cant log in right now for some reason, I started a thread over at After the Bar Closes called “How much fun is too much fun” aimed at finding the balance, the fine line between acceptable laughing at the fundies expense and doing what you are describing here.

Realizing that there is no way we are going to exercise restraint when so much good sport is on the table, I was attempting to ascertain what kinds of comments were “over the top” and which were, in the interest of good fun, marginally acceptable.

BTW, why can’t I log in to AtBC?

==========Comment #83079

Posted by Henry J on March 2, 2006 129 AM (e)

Re “BTW, why can’t I log in to AtBC?”

Oh, good, then it isn’t just me.

Henry

==========Comment #83105

Posted by CJ O'Brien on March 2, 2006 02:37 AM (e)

Re “BTW, why can’t I log in to AtBC?”Oh, good, then it isn’t just me.HenryBWE, Henry,I couldn’t either from work.I have since and Wesley, well, he did something.his msg. box was full, so I’m guessing there’s a few who can’t get on.

==========Comment #83193

Posted by Henry J on March 2, 2006 109 AM (e)

Re “Re “BTW, why can’t I log in to AtBC?”Oh, good, then it isn’t just me.HenryBWE, Henry,I couldn’t either from work.I have since and Wesley, well, he did something.his msg. box was full, so I’m guessing there’s a few who can’t get on.”

It was from home that I couldn’t get on AtBC last night. Won’t know till tonight if that’s changed or not. The screen that came up said I did’t have permission to use this board, and the “logon” button just led back to the same screen. The “register” button did bring up the registration screen, but it just wound up telling me my ID was already in use. (Duh.)

Check out the following online lecture/tutorial by Granville Sewell (Texas A&M) on the connection between thermodynamics and ID: www.math.tamu.edu/~sewell/odes_pdes/thermo.htmlFiled under: Intelligent Design — William Dembski @ 86 am

The comments are really where it's at.

Quote

1.

The article is extremely informative. Sewell points out IDists are on the whole uncomforatable with the old creationist arguments from the 2nd law. I certainly am. Thaxton, Bradley, and Olsen used an innovative approach by combining thermal entropy with configurational entropy to make a 2nd law-like argument, but I found it rather inelegant. I think the idea of a 4th law clarifies the issue better….

Sewell makes the point there is an underlying principle to the 2nd law (probability). I do feel comfortable with that. I think (and I could be wrong), that the laws of probability underlie both the 2nd and 4th law. Thus his point (as I see it) is evolution is in violation of principles even more fundamental than the second law.

All in all, a wonderful link!

Salvador

Comment by scordova — March 3, 2006 @ 8:54 am 2.

Wow! Great example of the beauty of simplicity!

Comment by jacktone — March 3, 2006 @ 9:22 am 3.

According to his line of reasoning I would have to conclude that the formation of everything from the initial atoms to galaxies, stars, and planetary systems is equally a concievable violation of the 2nd Law. Granted that the information in life is more complex and potentially less probable, but the principle is the same. Everywhere we look in the universe we see thermal order that, by the arguments reasoning, should not be there.

I think the probability angle makes for the best 2nd Law argument that I have heard, but it really does not address the classic failings of such arguments.

Comment by ftrp11 — March 3, 2006 @ 11:29 am 4.

Pretty impressive. Usually I don’t care for that argument, but he presented it well.

Comment by Teddy — March 3, 2006 @ 11:52 am 5.

It’s presented well, but it is a fallacious tautology he presents. Here is a simple counter-example: A highly improbable event would be for energetic water molecules to start sticking to each other in an ordered, symmetric way. Yet, it is made more probable by simply reducing the temperature of the system. (Frost in your fridge.) Heat leaving the boundry of this open system is how this is possible. How does his tautology explain such an event?

By the way: what is the 4th Law of Thermo?

Comment by danb — March 3, 2006 @ 124 pm 6.

So it sounds like his argument has little to do with thermodynamics, but is rather just a restatement of ID beliefs—that NS+RM is extremely unlikely to have produced the complexity and diversity we see. There certainly doesn’t seem to be a claim that any physical laws are violated.

Comment by physicist — March 3, 2006 @ 1:53 pm 7.

ftrp11 wrote: “According to his line of reasoning I would have to conclude that the formation of everything from the initial atoms to galaxies, stars, and planetary systems is equally a concievable violation of the 2nd Law.” –This is an EXCELLENT OBSERVATION and exactly correct. –That the existence of the material universe is a violation of the 2nd Law is ENTIRELY CONSISTENT with the logical inference we make from what we have learned from the development of the Big Bang theory–the origens of the material universe cannot have had a material origin.

Bingo, ftrp11! “Everywhere we look in the universe we see thermal order that, by the argument’s reasoning, should not be there.”

Comment by Red Reader — March 3, 2006 @ 1:54 pm 8.

ftrp11 wrote:

“I think the probability angle makes for the best 2nd Law argument that I have heard, but it really does not address the classic failings of such arguments.”

What are those classic failings? The principal and oft-repeated assertion I have seen is the assertion that the second law does not apply to open systems, which is nonsense. I would be interested to hear about specific failings of 2nd law arguments.

Comment by Eric Anderson — March 3, 2006 @ 3:38 pm

--------------("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into."--Jonathan Swift)

<quote>And it has never been explained how the Nazis were supposedly able to reliably distinguish Jews from non-Jews. </quote>

Again, try and think before you speak, you stupid little nonentity.

If you read a history book ot two that wasn't written by David Irving, you would realize it was quite easy for the German Army to find the Jews in Europe. The Jews had distinctive names, they tended to live in their own ghettos and neighborhoods, they often held different occupations from everyone else, and they went to temple. In most of Europe, especially eastern Europe, they were still <b>very segregated</b>. Moreover, the local gentiles all knew who and where the Jews were (since they had lived near them for centuries), there was pervasive antisemitism, and so in many countries, the local gentiles enthusiastically handed the Jews over to the Nazis.

This is all documented VERY WELL. If you read history books about WW2 that weren't written by other lying antisemitic boneheads like yourself, you would <b>know</b> this.

Might anyone know why Larry's Holocaust revisionism and other such nonsense is staying at PT, despite his endless violations of PT's sockpuppet rules, while my responses to his foolishness are getting bounced to the Bathroom Wall?

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

I assume it was Steve Reuland, since he began the thread, tho he offered no explanation.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

By the way, I <url href="http://craptaculus.com/eac/jesus.htm">found Jesus</url>.

You don't really want to ban Andy. Haven't you all noticed that this is all for "amusement purposes only" and should not be played for investment purposes? Andy provides a good whipping boy and sometimes even makes us laugh. And dog only knows, some of us desperately need a good laugh. Especially if it can be at someone else's expense. I'm not convinced Andy is really larry. I mean, I don't think he <i>knows</i> he's Larry.

So the pattern seems to be that Andy/Larry goes unbanned and undisemvowelled no matter what he does (no matter how far off topic he goes, or how many fake names he uses), but anyone responding to him gets bounced here. Am I the only one who finds this incomprehensible?

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

<quote>You donâ€™t really want to ban Andy. Havenâ€™t you all noticed that this is all for â€śamusement purposes onlyâ€ť and should not be played for investment purposes? Andy provides a good whipping boy and sometimes even makes us laugh. And dog only knows, some of us desperately need a good laugh. Especially if it can be at someone elseâ€™s expense. Iâ€™m not convinced Andy is really larry. I mean, I donâ€™t think he knows heâ€™s Larry.</quote>

I think it would depend on what the intent of the comment section of the blog is. If it's just a place for people to informally bullshit about things vaguely related to the original post, then yes, there's really no reason to ban him.

If we're attempting to have even somewhat formal academic commentary or related on-topic debate, however, then there's a very strong reason to ban him. In those settings, cranks who do not support themselves are ultimately unwelcome.

OK, I understand. But really, Andy/whoever does perform a function sometimes. He spits out the party line and, when he's on topic, gives those who wish to a chance to point out how ignorant the party line is. Readers who don't comment who might be on the fence can see who the people are they might side with. I personally think that keeping a lighthearted attitude towards Andy/farflungdung/whoever helps the whole PT community by illustrating the whole us/them point. I know that us/them is the black and the white but seriously, how long can you stay in the area occupied by the slash?

--------------Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far

OK, I understand. But really, Andy/whoever does perform a function sometimes. He spits out the party line and, when he's on topic, gives those who wish to a chance to point out how ignorant the party line is. Readers who don't comment who might be on the fence can see who the people are they might side with. I personally think that keeping a lighthearted attitude towards Andy/farflungdung/whoever helps the whole PT community by illustrating the whole us/them point. I know that us/them is the black and the white but seriously, how long can you stay in the area occupied by the slash?

I can see your point, but that doesn't explain bouncing everyone who responds to him. Is this Steve Reuland doing this again?

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

A man who vies with Dembski for the description of worst human being -- Dave Scott could not really be human, after all -- involved with creationism. Their styles are so different, though, it is hard to directly compare the vileness with which they somehow make their "undead-ing" (such people don't really earn a "living.")

I never wish even the worst person ill, but should I hear that this man has died without confession, it will provide the solace of knowing that death comes even to the worst of us.

Do I recall correctly that the color of the user id's in this thread indicates if it was posted here directly, or got moved here after being posted someplace that's else?

Henry

I see the flow of refugees continues...

Yes, if the name is in red, that means someone bounced it here from PT.

And yes, it is Reuland. He's zapping people left and right and leaving Larry untouched. Amazing.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

<quote>I would have thought that moving a whole bunch of comments to the Bathroom Wall would have made it obvious not to feed the troll, but some of you are amazingly thick-headed. One stupid comment does not ruin a thread. One stupid comment combined with 8 people who just canâ€™t help but respond ruins a thread. Please, quit ruining my threads.</quote>

Why are you punishing the people who <b>respond</b> to the trolls but not banishing/disemvowelling the trolls themselves? Delete/bounce Larry, the problem goes away. Do it this way, the problem lasts forever.

<quote>I would have thought that moving a whole bunch of comments to the Bathroom Wall would have made it obvious not to feed the troll, but some of you are amazingly thick-headed. One stupid comment does not ruin a thread. One stupid comment combined with 8 people who just can't help but respond ruins a thread. Please, quit ruining my threads.</quote>

Why are you punishing the people who <b>respond</b> to the trolls but not banishing/disemvowelling the trolls themselves? Delete/bounce Larry, the problem goes away. Do it this way, the problem lasts forever.

Now this is interesting. Like 2 minutes after I posted that at PT, it appears here, but at the moment it's still in the PT thread -- but NOT in the list of 'recent comments'. Is it one of those deals where only I can read my posting?

Now I know how all those people who try and post at UD feel.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

It turns out that Steve is applying the same rules that go for this BB:

Quote

# MetaRule 1) DO NOT respond to inappropriate messages with a message.# MetaRule 2) DO NOT enter inappropriate messages.

Myself, I'd bounce all the inappropriate messages, but that's up to each thread owner.

Also, PT is done via Movable Type. MT generates static pages, so things have to be "rebuilt". This can lead to some odd behavior on the leading edge of current stuff.

There's also a rule saying that sockpuppeting will get you banned, but that rule is ignored.

I see Nick Matzke is also bouncing people here as well. Quite the craze there this week.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

Okay, the other shoe dropped, my post is now totally gone from Steve's thread, but there's a new long post by AD taking Steve to task for how he's handling it. Be interesting to see if Steve makes that posting disappear too.

I'm never posting anything on one his threads again, for one thing.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

I had some good, on topic posts and they are neither here nor there. But, Arden, make it a game. See what you can get away with! THese musings on the subject are not limited to practicing research scientists. (Maybe you are one). They are reactions and thoughts on the subjects at hand as well as the global subject of the fundementalist attack on the "educated intelligent class of people". So if you want to get back at him, tease him, don't go away mad. Try to stay nominally on topic but look through the historical postings. If you took OT posts out many threads would have no posts at all. It is a broad topic and peevish behavior is to be expected from anyone from time to time.

Too many thoughts! Sorry that was so rambling but I hope you got my point.

--------------Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far

There seem to be some conflicting ideas of what the comments on PT posts are there for. Most contributors think that the comments are for others to reflect upon the post and put in some substantive commentary, adding to what is there or bringing up serious considerations and critique of the content of the post.

On the other hand, we have a lot of non-contributors who seem to think of the PT comment capability just as a rather slow IRC chat room. This is certainly the case for the trolls. It would be unfortunate if many others are lured into troll-like behavior.

I had some good, on topic posts and they are neither here nor there. But, Arden, make it a game. See what you can get away with! THese musings on the subject are not limited to practicing research scientists. (Maybe you are one). They are reactions and thoughts on the subjects at hand as well as the global subject of the fundementalist attack on the "educated intelligent class of people". So if you want to get back at him, tease him, don't go away mad. Try to stay nominally on topic but look through the historical postings. If you took OT posts out many threads would have no posts at all. It is a broad topic and peevish behavior is to be expected from anyone from time to time.

Too many thoughts! Sorry that was so rambling but I hope you got my point.

I think I do get your point, but I'm not sure it's worth it. Check out SR's closing paragraph on the last message of the thread:

Quote

It wouldn’t surprise me if there are one or two reasonable comments in the torret of posts that invariably follows one of his random, inane anti-“Darwinist” rants, but I can’t be arsed to pick them out. The whole lot goes. If anyone wants to lodge a complaint about censorship, they can find someone who cares.

'They can find someone who cares.' Jesus, if I wanted to deal with someone like that, I'd argue with DaveSpringer at UD. Leaves a rather bad taste in my mouth. Screw it.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

There seem to be some conflicting ideas of what the comments on PT posts are there for. Most contributors think that the comments are for others to reflect upon the post and put in some substantive commentary, adding to what is there or bringing up serious considerations and critique of the content of the post.

There aren't a lot of posts that don't meet this criteria. You can't blame people for what they think is substance. Since it's OK to be Off-Topic here on the Bathroom Wall, I am going to ask you a question: what is the point of this blog? Is it an educational forum with serious entries or is there a sort of lighthearted side to it? I can think of a lot of posts that are just plain funny and have very little if any redeeming science or legal value. There is a lot of nuance to the global subject and the gray area is exceptionally hard to define. (Ask Raging Bee who makes very odd remarks here but publishes a pretty good blog of her own).

If people can't use laser-like accuracy in their comments it may be for several reasons, time constraints, knowledge level, elloquence at the moment etc. but they -we - really are discussing the topics, albeit sometimes in a roundabout way. This global subject has different meanings for different people and That's why we post comments.

I personally have a strange fascination with fundies ever since a bunch of them broke some equipment I was using. Weirdest thing but when confronted their lack of neurons was utterly astounding. They were doing gods work.

For whatever reason people comment they are contributing to the debate. You could always try to go to a slashdot kind of system but your impartiality is a pretty stark contrast to uncommon descent and people can see that. It is always better to be on the side of intellectual honesty and that is a major theme of this blog. Or am I missing the point entirely?

Would you prefer that I don't share my thoughts and opinions on PT? How about Arden? Lenny? k.e.? Or do we contribute in some way?

How about you Steve Reuland? What would you like to see?

I am not in a snit. I seriously wonder. I might have missed the mark when I first found this blog. It wouldn't be the first time. But I do have a serious interest in the topics and I am a little irrepressable so I post comments.

--------------Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far

Let's be clear. A "post" on PT is the thing at the top, put there by one of the PT contributors or added as a guest entry. All the rest are "comments".

And I would have to disagree on the proportion of comments that meet the criteria I stated. I'm thinking that it is rather more like what is stated for the "Bathroom Wall": you go through a lot of oyster guts to get to the pearls.

Myself, I don't really expect to find that the comments have become a beautiful string of pearls. However, I would like to do what I can to encourage a somewhat higher rate of pearl production than what I see now.

I think I've established my track record or reputation concerning discussion. This BB has been going for several years now; it predates PT by a good while. To be allowed to post pretty freely here merely requires non-sociopathic behavior. That's beyond a very few people, and I do what I can to minimize their impact on the system. Long before the Internet was the social force it is today, I was operating a dial-up BBS. I set up the Fidonet Evolution and NeuralNet echoes (an echo is analogous to a Usenet newsgroup) and moderated those for several years. My approach has been to let people speak pretty freely, but challenge them to improve. If you think that your contributions, or Lenny's, or Arden's, or anybody else's are perfect already and I shouldn't be urging improvement, then we've come to an irreconcilable difference of opinion. Which just means that I will continue to press for improvement.

So, what about the "friends" post? And Andy/////whoever?I'm just wondering what you think. You mentioned "troll like behavior" and I wonder what you think of their value. Are they the guy at the beginning of the tax hearing or is the tax hearing a bad analogy?

--------------Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far

Well, I have nothing really unique to say anyway, but the use of BW by a few of the folk I agree with at PT to make us look pure and selfless - this time my comment really was a simple and controlled expression of my extreme disgust for someone everyone finds disgusting - while giving the real trolls full access to the same #### thread has broken my trust.

Many of the pro-science side, like myself, have justified anger and disgust, and how we express it is our own business -- if not making threats or derailing threads -- and the threadmasters who act like pastors instead of editors can #### well piss off when they abuse their position.

I'll leave the boards to others and work with the issue in ways that matter, and right now the PT discussions do not matter much: this is the trench warfare phase of the struggle when no lurker is going to change their mind no matter how many propaganda flyers are scattered about, or how many well-crafted, sincere, angry, cheerful, honest posts anyone makes.

PT (and Talk Origins and several others! has a real function, and I laud the people doing the real work of detailing the science and exposing the lies and intrigues of the completely cynical Creationist/ Fundamentalist movement, but why involve myself in what is now a stupid shouting match? Why argue or persuade people as shitty and stupid as LarryF, or Thordaddy, or as insincerely sincere as that Advo guy? It's your time, folks, and do what you think right, or enjoy, but I've finally had enough, with also being casually pissed on by someone with the views I support as well.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

I bounced myself. I do that fairly regularly, even when it's not simply a test of software changes. If I chime in on something that ends up being a digression, I have no qualms about moving my bits over here along with the rest of the digression.

1. The person known as "Andy H" and various other pseudonyms has effectively been banned. He apparently uses multiple IP addresses which makes it very hard to ban him outright. Reed and Wesley, who run the technical aspects of the blog (all props to them) are doing what they can, but they work their tails off to make this blog what it is, and problems like this just come with the territory. I am NOT trying to give anyone a hard time while ignoring the root of the problem. The root of the problem is being dealt with, but it ain't an easy problem to deal with (and out of my hands anyway).

2. When I moved "Andy H's" comment and all of those that responded to him, I purposely did not try to differentiate those that were legit from those that weren't. The obvious reason for that is that I don't want to pass judgment on those responses that were okay vs. those that were not. That puts me in a position that I don't want to be in. All of them were off-topic, and I figured it would be best if I treated them all the same way. If I let some of them stand and others not stand, then I'd be yelled at for selective moderation. (Of course got yelled at anyway, but like I say, it comes with the territory... )

3. I screwed up when I used the "junk" function to try to move comments here. I thought that would move comments to the BW, but instead it put them into another category of "unpublished" comments. They are not deleted. But I also don't know how to get them back or put them here. This is my fault, and not what I intended. If it really matters to anyone, I'll try to do what I can to get them here. (Unfortunately, that means leaning on Wesley to fix the problem, since I don't know how to do it.)

4. I really don't take kindly to the suggestion that moderation equals censorship. That is nonsense. We have a fairly liberal policy concerning comments, and have banned very few people, but that never means that one can post whatever one pleases. I consider comments to be a valuable tool for generating feedback, critique, and to add additional information. If I didn't see things this way, I wouldn't even open them in the first place (every poster can just keep them closed if he or she pleases). That being said, it really defeats the purpose of having comments when a lot of people use them to lob insults at each other, regardless of who started it.

5. And my final comment is not really related to my current bouncing of messages, but I'd like to make a plea to those of us who are pro-evolution and anti-ID not to make comments that have no other purpose other than to insult IDists (please don't call them IDiots), so-called "fundies", or worst of all, religion in general. I honestly don't see the point in any of that. Our goal is to explain to the population at large what's wrong with ID/creationist claims and arguments. If you don't like religion, I hate to break it to you, but several of our contributors (including Wesley) are religious. And yet we all manage to get along because we find common ground in science and reason. If you want to make jabs at people who have conservative, fundamentalist beliefs, well guess what? You're preaching to the choir. You are saying nothing profound or original by pointing out that there is something wrong with the way some of these people think. Who, precisely, do you think such attacks manage to influence? Not me -- I'm already on board. Not them, they just use such attacks to reinforce their inaccurate view that all of us are a bunch of as pinko atheist humanistic anti-religious whatever the #### it is we're suppsed to be. How about those people sitting on the fence? You'll influence them, one hopes, with lucid explanations about what's wrong with creationism, not with crude attacks on religion or political points of view with which they may have sympathy. Just saying is all.

But, Arden, make it a game. See what you can get away with! ...So if you want to get back at him, tease him, don't go away mad. Try to stay nominally on topic but look through the historical postings. If you took OT posts out many threads would have no posts at all. It is a broad topic and peevish behavior is to be expected from anyone from time to time.

Um, no, this is exactly what you should not be doing. Trying to test me is not cool. It is what is called trolling, and if you keep it up, it will get you banned. Not because I don't love you (I do! ) but because it is against the rules. And it is very much counter-productive to what we are trying to do.

So, what about the "friends" post? And Andy/////whoever?I'm just wondering what you think. You mentioned "troll like behavior" and I wonder what you think of their value. Are they the guy at the beginning of the tax hearing or is the tax hearing a bad analogy?

I don't get the allusion to a "friends" post.

Andy/Larry/whoever uses a lot of different IPs to evade IP banning. If PT went to a completely closed registration, or moderated all posts, we could keep Andy and other despicable computer cracker types out. Other than that, it's going to be up to posters to moderate their threads. Some people have the time to do that, others don't and may simply turn off comments. In the latest case that we're discussing, there was confusion over how to move comments here to the Bathroom Wall, and some comments got tagged as "junk" instead.

Someone made a comment about things being equally hard to move a comment to the Bathroom Wall as to unpublish or delete. Actually, up to today, it was more difficult to move a comment to the Bathroom Wall than to do either of the other things, because the only means of doing so involved treating each comment individually.

I've just tried out my new MT plugin that provides another action for moving that can act on multiple selected comments at once, and it seems to be working. So hopefully PT contributors will have a little easier time of keeping discussions on-track now.

Tell you what Dave, why don't you intelligently design a time machine and go live between the years 1954 and 1967?That way, you'll actually have a chance of being almost right about something for once...

...Nah, not really. I'm messing with you, you'd still be wrong; don't send that memo to the ID R&D department just yet. After all, I'm sure they're quite busy.

Berlinski was mocking you people. It wasnâ€™t that subtle but it still appears to have zipped right over the tops of your pointy little heads.

This is off topic but I thought all the youngsters here should know that â€śdegrees Kelvinâ€ť was the proper expression from 1954 until 1967 when the International Bureau of Weights and Measures decreed degrees be dropped. This is sort of like the U.N. decreeing that French is the international language of diplomacy. Some decrees are accepted to a greater â€śdegreeâ€ť than others. LOL

<quote author="Dave Scot">Berlinski was mocking you people. It wasnâ€™t that subtle but it still appears to have zipped right over the tops of your pointy little heads.

This is off topic but I thought all the youngsters here should know that â€śdegrees Kelvinâ€ť was the proper expression from 1954 until 1967 when the International Bureau of Weights and Measures decreed degrees be dropped. This is sort of like the U.N. decreeing that French is the international language of diplomacy. Some decrees are accepted to a greater â€śdegreeâ€ť than others. LOL

I see the frenzied bouncing is continuing. So this makes 2 people there who do this, Steve Reuland and Nick Matzke. I wonder if this will become the new policy of everyone's threads and whether it will be applied even-handedly...

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

That last wasn't Nick. Banned commenters on PT will have their comments unpublished and replies to those comments will go to the Bathroom Wall. That is a site-wide thing, not something that need be left to individual contributors.

This is not "frenzied bouncing". This is a considered application of the rules that we have laid down for comments.

We started the Bathroom Wall because there are a lot of comments that do not substantially contribute to consideration of a post, but we did not simply want to delete what commenters have said, even when it is digressive or otherwise inappropriate to the discussion. (And the contributor has the final say on that judgment.) So I think that moving comments to the Bathroom Wall should be pretty much a common thing for contributors to do. Now that I've made it easier to accomplish, I will be pushing contributors to make more use of it.

Hi, Larry. Back dishonestly using yet <i>another</i> pseudonymn? Why do you do it? Are you honestly so foolish as to think that your content-free, scientifically-illiterate, ignorant posts are not immediately recognizable? Amazing.

<quote author="Larry le pissoir">You can say that again. Consider the following â€”

A Guardian article reported a recent UK public opinion poll that showed that 4 out of 10 think that ID should be taught in science classes. See http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,â€¦ .</quote> Unfortunately for you, you failed to even bother to read the article. The poll was about <i>religious</i> alternatives. And you've claimed that ID isn't religious.

Get a clue, Larry. Your continual posting in ignorance and deceit is boring.

<quote>http://www.furl.net/members/bsgroup/Creationism%â€¦) reports on the controversy in Australia, Eastern Europe, Germany, Finland, Turkey, and New Zealand.</quote> Misleading data from a creationist nutcase. More Larry ignorance.

<quote>http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/03/C84â€¦ reports that a Russian schoolgirl has filed a lawsuit â€śdemanding that the Russian Education Ministry rewrite biology textbooks to include the view of creationism â€” the belief that God created the universe and all living beings as described in the Bible. Teaching only the theory of evolution, she says, violates freedom of conscience and religious rights, and therefore runs counter to the constitution.â€ť This article also reports a public opinion poll in Russia that shows strong support for creationism. Ironically, revulsion against the â€śgodlessnessâ€ť of communism was supposedly the motivation for permanently adding the motto â€śIn God We Trustâ€ť to all US money in 1955 (the motto had appeared on various coins off-and-on dating back to 1864) and adding â€śunder godâ€ť to the pledge of allegiance to the flag in 1954.</quote> But ID is not religion, Larry. You've said so.

Do try to be consistent in your ignorance. Thank you.

<quote>http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1188423â€¦ reported, *â€¦..as in the United States, creation and evolution are political issues in Italy. In February[2004], Alleanza Nazionale, one of parties in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconiâ€™s governing coalition, held a week long series of events to dispute the theory of evolution. In the course of a conference entitled Teaching Evolution: a Fairytale for the Schools, parliamentarian Pietro Cerullo linked Darwinâ€™s theory to leftist thought.*</quote> There are a minority of nutcases everywhere. So what?

Fortunately, the Church is far more informed that you are, Larry. They're not ignorant. And they have been debating the proper relationship of science and faith for well over a thousand years; all the way back to St. Augustine, in fact. You'd know that if you knew anything about the Church or the history of Christianity. But apparently you don't.

==============================

<quote>Thus, the notion that evolution theory is controversial only in the USA is utterly without foundation.</quote> Nobody ever said that; you're making up <i>strawmen</i> again. Of course, since you claim that you <i>don't</i> make up strawmen, we see that you're being inconsistent, as well as dishonest and ignorant.

Why, Larry? In the age of the internet, your ignorance is inexcusable!

<quote>This false notion is especially promoted by those who falsely claim that the USAâ€™s controversy over evolution theory is going to hurt the countryâ€™s international technological competitiveness.</quote> It will. Thank God you have nothing to do with science - you're a menace.<quote>In any case, raising doubts about evolution theory need not be a problem, because scientists can use evolution theory even while believing that all or part of it is untrue.</quote> But they don't, Larry. Another ridiculous strawman, written by someone without any knowledge or experience with science or any 'hard' discipline.

Scientists accept evolution as the best current explanation to fit the facts. Only an ignorant fundie, such as yourself, would claim that scientists 'believe' or don't 'believe' in it.

And there <i>are</i> no doubts about whether evolution takes place, Larry. Only arguments about the relative weight of mechanisms. Of course, if you knew anything about evolution, you'd have known that.

Kinda Sorta Important Notice: Johncabbreck, also posting as Larry Fafarman, Andy H., and possibly other names, has a well-known habit of repeatedly posting assertions and arguments that have been soundly refuted in other threads on PT. Such repetitive axe-grinding, combined with his intellectual dishonesty, arguments from ignorance and incomprehension, and explicit refusal to acknowledge any fact that he finds inconvenient, have proven that he is not arguing in good faith and is not interested in real adult debate, and may not even be capable of it.

In addition, he is a Holocaust-denier. (His views on the curvature of the Earth have not yet been ascertained.) And he has all but explicitly admitted that his purpose in posting here is to get attention, not to engage in adult discourse. Therefore, responding to his "arguments" is probably a waste of time, and it may be best simply to ignore them.

Wesley has said that the new PT policy is to delete the comments of people who have been banned, and to bounce the <i>responses</i> to banned people to the Bathroom wall. Apparently Larry has officially been banned. Thus, if 'Johncabbreck' is indeed Larry, as seems extremely likely, his post should be deleted and his latest IP address banned. If these policies are to be implemented at all, they need to be consistent.

There is no new policy. Someone under a ban has no expectation that any illicitly entered comment will be retained. Anyone responding to such a comment is engaged in a meta-site issue, and thus those comments fall under Rule 2, and may be removed entirely without notice.

There is no new policy. Someone under a ban has no expectation that any illicitly entered comment will be retained. Anyone responding to such a comment is engaged in a meta-site issue, and thus those comments fall under Rule 2, and may be removed entirely without notice.

Wesley:

Perhaps the policy isn't new, but lots of people seem not to be aware of the policy (PvM didn't seem to know), and the policy went largely unenforced until just the last few days. That makes it essentially a 'new policy'.

The more people who explicitly know of this policy, the better.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

David Springer sets a bad example of behavior. There is no need to imitate his intransigence on receipt of facts contrary to a claim.

Thanks for the insult, Wes.

BTW, Larry's posting again at Pim's thread. You might want to, um, do something about it.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

It is obvious that Johncabbreck is Andy H./Larry Farflungdung and debating him is an utter waste of time as he will constantly change his mind about the meaning of what he writes. If you do, however, choose to debate him he will make several amusing analogies and continually make statements like, "scientists can use evolution theory even while believing that all or part of it is untrue." or something like, "I don't like the title Intelligent Design because it implies religion; irreducible complexity is better because it lacks that implication." Nice try Larry. Go trolling somewhere else.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

I see both DaveScot and Davison are both posting in the 'Evolution for Kids' thread. Dave's posting under 'DaveS', which he's been posting under for a week.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

Larry has several comments at the Nancy Pearcy thread at PT that ought to be deleted.

Look for 'J Early' and the terribly clever 'J Nameless'.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

It doesn't matter if Larry is officially banned or not. He's still wrecking threads.

I think deleting his posts as soon as they appear and banning his IP addresses, as often as it has to be done, will help. Seems to me after they started doing that to him a week ago he disappeared for several days. If he doesn't get a reaction and if it's hard work for him to post there, he'll drift away.

--------------"Rich is just mad because he thought all titties had fur on them until last week when a shorn transvestite ruined his childhood dreams by jumping out of a spider man cake and man boobing him in the face lips." - Erasmus

PASADENA, Calif.--Your emotions can easily be read by others when you blush--at least by others familiar with your skin color. What's more, the blood rushing out of your face when you're terrified is just as telling. And when it comes to our evolutionary cousins the chimpanzees, they not only can see color changes in each other's faces, but in each other's rumps as well.

(Hair today, gone tomorrow? Butt at least the chimps can get to the bottom of things. )